LI project for 2012 yet to take off in Khammam

Khammam,Nov 7: Another Lift Irrigation project on river Godavari,which will extend water to five mandals in the district,under phase II of Sriramsagar Project (SRSP)canal systems is waiting in the wings to take off provided the government pays its attention.Although scheduled to be competed by 2012, the works are hardly making any progress and the project has been simply reduced to a survey.The water would be diverted to irrigate an ayacut of 68,914 acre in Palair constituency in the district. Earlier, the project was proposed under Distributor Major 60 of the phase-II of SRSP.It was proposed to irrigate fields in Tirumalyapalem,Khammam Rural,Mudigonda,Kusumanchi and Nelakondapalli mandal.The State government issued orders (GO MS No. 157) for the administrative approval of the cost amounting to Rs 280.90 lakh for the aerial survey and preparation of detailed project report for the laying of separate and an independent pipeline to draw 6.5 tmc water from Godavari in 2008.

As per the plan,water would be lifted from Godavari in Aswapuram mandal and taken to Lalitapuram tank in Yellandu mandal through pipelines of three diameters.From there on, water would be brought to Garla tank through a gravity canal and further sent to Andanalapadu under Dornakal mandal.The water from there was planned to be lifted to Maripeda and linked to phase II of SRSP. The government found it difficult to supply water to feed the phase II of SRSP from the project because of non-availability of the adequate water from Sriramsagar  as all the excess water had went in for Babli Project in Maharastra. So,another proposal to extend water to it by drawing it from Godavari through a new Lift Irrigation scheme was made.A total of 27,143 acre in Tirumalayapalem,2951 acre in Nelakondapalli, 2440 in Mudigonda,  23, 448 in Kusumanchi and 12,924 acre in Khammam Rural would be irrigated with the water.Since the project works are yet to commence,farmers of these mandals urge the government to start the works as early as possible.