Irrigation top priority despite cash crunch: Devineni Uma

Anantapur: Water Resources Minister Devineni Umamaheswara Rao has stated that the TD government has laudable achievements to its credit with particular reference to successful execution of major and medium irrigation projects in the state.

The notable among them being Pattiseema, Polavaram and the HNSS projects which have proved to be a great boon for Anantapur and Kurnool and Chittoor districts.  Addressing a press conference at the R&B Guest House here on Wednesday, the Minister said that the achievements are laudable in the light of the fact that the state financial position was precarious in the post-bifurcation dispensation. 

A total of 1,450 village tanks was being filled with Krishna water through the HNSS canal. It takes 26.300 tmcft of water to fill the village tanks which irrigated 1.17 lakh acres in the district. The HNSS scheme and Tungabhadra High Level Canal water from Karnataka and the recharging of groundwater and borewells have all put together negated the adverse of drought caused by failure of monsoon and helped the government to effectively tide over the drought crisis which would otherwise have been very grave.

The HNSS and the Tungabhadra dam water alone have the capacity to fill 1,048 village tanks, the Minister said and added that once the second phase of HNSS is completed in a couple of years, the entire face of Rayalaseema particularly Anantapur district would change and all agriculture and horticulture crops would get water even in the absence of a decent monsoon in the district. 

Devineni Uma said that more than 74,000 defunct bores had been revived thus bringing an additional ayacut of 1.85 lakh acres under irrigation coverage.  Out of 7 lakh hectares of groundnut crop acreage, 3 lakh acres groundnut crop has been saved by the HNSS and HLC water.

He said that horticulture crops like mangoes, sweet oranges, banana, pomegranate and other horticulture crops have received a big boost up to 5 lakh acres. Devineni stated that 60 per cent of Polavaram project works have been completed and that gates installation would start in 
December. 

The Minister said that Kia Motors became a reality due to successful bringing of Krishna waters to Gollapalle reservoir. Minister for Housing and Information Kalva Srinivas, Dharmavaram MLA Suri, TDP district president and MLA B K Parthasarathi and District Collector Veera Pandian and SP GVG Ashok Kumar were present.