Sangareddy: Sangameshwara, Basaveshwara projects in jeopardy with no funds allocated

State government made no budget allocations for SLIP and BLIP that were envisaged to provide irrigation and drinking water to Sangareddy district.

Sangareddy: With the State government making no budget allocations for the Sangameshwara Lift Irrigation Project (SLIP) and Basaveshwara Lift Irrigation Project (BLIP) that were envisaged to provide irrigation and drinking water to Sangareddy district, the commitment of the Congress in completing the irrigation projects in the district is being questioned.

Former Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao laid the foundation for the construction of these two lift irrigation projects with an outlay of Rs.4,427 crore in February 2022 in Narayankhed. The two projects together aimed to provide irrigation water to 3.90 lakh acres in Sangareddy, Patancheru, Zaheerabad, and Narayankhed assembly segments apart from parts of Narsapur.

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However, the Congress government has made no allocations for the two projects in the budget presented on Thursday, putting the future of these two projects in jeopardy. Irrigation authorities wanted to pump in 12 TMCfts for SLIP and 8 TMCfts of water for BLIP from Kondapochamma Sagar as part of the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme (KLIS) 19th package.

Since the Singur reservoir was not receiving regular water, the previous BRS government had proposed to pump in water from Kondapochamma to Singur through SLIP, from where the Godavari water was proposed to be released through canals to Andole, Sangareddy, and Zaheerabad assembly segments.

Sangareddy MLA Chintha Prabhakar said the Congress government ignoring the two projects had proved that they had no commitment to provide irrigation water to parched areas of Zaheerabad, Narayankhed, and Andole constituencies.

Since Sangareddy was also fast expanding into a satellite town for Hyderabad, the SLIP was key to meeting the irrigation and drinking water needs of the district.

Former Andole MLA Chanti Kranthi Kiran said irrigation officials could not release water to Vanakalam crops under Singur until now because the project did not get any inflows from upstream. He said there would be no such issues once the SLIP was completed, underlining the need for giving priority to these projects.