Congress stakes claim to Sitarama project; Officials say only 55 percent is complete

According to engineering officials, it would take another one and a half years to complete the project, that too if everything goes according to plan.

Kothagudem: The hype created by the Congress government, especially Ministers, over the proposed August 15 inauguration of the Sitarama Lift Irrigation Project (SRLIP), and their efforts to take credit for the project is backfiring. According to engineering officials, it would take another one and a half years to complete the project, that too if everything goes according to plan.

Speaking to Telangana Today, a senior engineer who has been overseeing the project works, said only 55 percent works of the project were complete at present. Estimates worth Rs.4000 crore were readied for distributary canals, while calling of tenders and land acquisition was yet to be done for the canals. About 95 percent of the main canal works were complete while work on the Sathupalli trunk canal and the Palair link canal was yet to be completed. An amount of Rs.160 crore was yet to be paid for the lands acquired for the canals, he said.

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The previous BRS government had initiated the project in February 2016 to irrigate 7.87 lakh acres in erstwhile Khammam and Mahabubabad districts with hydrology clearance of 67.05 TMC. The project is divided into eight packages.

However, the Congress government appears to be in a hurry to claim credit for the project, with three Ministers – N Uttam Kumar Reddy, Tummala Nageswara Rao and Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy – on Sunday conducting a trial run of two pump houses of the project, ahead of Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy inaugurating the project on August 15 by releasing water to fill the Wyra reservoir through the 8.69km Enkoor link canal to supply water to agriculture fields in Sathupalli and Wyra area.

Meanwhile, several Left wing leaders, perplexed over the hype being created by the Ministers, are questioning the rationale behind the project’s inauguration by the Chief Minister. Telangana Rythu Sangham state president P Sudarshan Rao and secretary T Sagar criticised the Congress government for deceiving the people in the name of the inauguration without completing the project and creating rift among farmers in the region.

Sudarshan Rao objected to the hasty inauguration of the project without completing the Sitamma Sagar, which is the source of water for the project. While water should be released through this project in order of priority, the government is violating it, he said, pointing out that the Ministers were acting at will by skipping the order as per actual design of the project, which was to provide water to 3.5 lakh acres in Kothagudem district, then to Khammam and then to Mahabubabad district.

Allegations are that the priority order was being discarded so that one of these Ministers could first get the water to Sathupalli and Wyra to pacify his supporters there. Meanwhile, referring to Uttam Kumar Reddy’s statement that the project would be completed by August 15, 2026, Sudarshan Rao asked the Minister why the government was inaugurating it now.

The previous BRS government had planned to irrigate thousands of acres of land in Julurpad mandal and surrounding areas in Kothagudem district by building a tunnel through a hillock and constructing a main canal through Karepalli mandal on the other side. But, the Congress government put aside the matter of providing water to the area and was planning to divert Godavari water to Wyra reservoir through Enkoor link canal, farmers in the district also complained.