Uttam promises to fast-track Gauravelli irrigation project

Exuding confidence that the state would receive the environmental clearance soon for the Gauravelli Irrigation project and overcome all the legal hurdles being faced for the completion of works on it, the Minister for Irrigation and Civil Supplies N Uttam Kumar Reddy said that the land acquisition process would be completed as part of a time bound programme.

Joined by the Minister for Transport Ponnam Prabhakar, he had a high-level review at his Secretariat chambers on the issues coming in the way of the work progress.

Gouravelli project is one of the reservoirs constructed under the Indiramma Flood Flow Canal (IFFC) project. The reservoir was initially proposed with a storage capacity of 1.41 TMC in Siddipet district. The original project was aimed to create an ayacut of 1.06 lakh acres. It was subsequently enhanced to a capacity of 8.23 TMC.

He assured fair compensation and speedy payments to the farmers parting with land for the implementation of project. He asserted that the land acquisition process would put on fast track.

The government is firm on completion of the land acquisition task by releasing required funds well before June 2. He directed Collectors of Karimnagar, Jangaon and Siddipet, who also participated in the review to pay focused attention to the land acquisition issues according priority to the project.

Referring to the legal challenges, he directed the advocate general to be ready with the required strategies as the Supreme Court case involving the project will be coming up for hearing in two days.

He expressed the hope that that the state would be able to overcome all the legal hurdles in respect of the Gouravelli project, He said that the project has been pending with the works stalled for many years due to multiple reasons.Stating that the state government remained committed to complete the project, he said funds would be released without further delay.