After receiving several complaints from farmers and leaders of various associations, Minister for Municipal Administration and Urban Development (MA&UD), Ponguru Narayana, promised to complete the repair works and desilting of all irrigation canals in Nellore district at the earliest.
Speaking as the chief guest in the Irrigation Advisory Board (IAB) meeting at the District Collectorate on Friday, he said: “All the irrigation canals will be repaired and the tenders for the repair works will be completed by November 18, then the works will be commenced. The farmers’ associations and officials must oversee the canal works. Once the condition of the State treasury improves, we will discuss the process of acquiring funds with the Chief Minister.”
“The Chief Minister has recently ordered to start ‘Operation Budameru’ — a special drive for the removal of encroachments along the canals. He has given orders to take aerial videos of the canals after the repair works are conducted in the district,” he said, alleging that not even a single canal was desilted during the last five years, but bills have been produced by the previous government.
All public representatives in the district were asked to ensure that every acre of agricultural land receives water, he said, adding that currently 69 TMC of water is available in Somasila reservoir and 50 TMC in Kandaleru reservoir, and both are irrigating overall 7.77 lakh acres of land.
However, Sarvepalli MLA Somireddy Chandramohan Reddy said caution must be exercised to make sure that the irrigations drains are not exhausted. “Although there is plenty of water in the projects, water should be used sparingly. In the past, 16,000 acres of land was cultivated with one TMC of water by following precautions in irrigation management,” he said.
Published - November 09, 2024 07:12 pm IST
