The joy of farmers over the completion of first phase of the long-pending Pula Subbaiah Veligonda project will be ephemeral if urgent steps are not taken for inclusion of the project in the gazette notification issued by the Centre, a group of ryots in Prakasam district has said.
The farmers from the district want Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy to direct the Irrigation Department officials to write a fresh letter, urging the Centre to include this project in the gazette notification considering the fact that the command area of more than the ₹7500-crore project is mostly drought-prone akin to Anantapur and next only to Jaisalmer in Rajasthan, the driest district in the country, said All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee Prakasam district convenor Ch.Ranga Rao.
He took stock of the development on Sunday with various farmers’ organisations in the district, including the Andhra Pradesh Rythu Sangam and the N.G.Ranga Kisan Sabha.
He explained that though the project had been included in the Andhra Pradesh State Reorganisation Act, the same was not included in the gazette notification subsequently issued by the Centre for administration by the Krishna River Manqagement Board (KRMB) due some typographical errors in the schedule of projects as per the Act.
In this background, the State government wrote to the Centre for including not only the Veligonda project but several other projects. But it led to a stalemate as the Centre was in no mood to consider all the projects though it was favourably inclined to consider the Veligonda case following intervention by Vice-President M. Venkaiah Naidu, said the head of the AIKSCC, an umbrella organisation of farmers.
He had called on the Vice-President along with farmer leader Vadde Sobhandreswara Rao and others in New Delhi recently to press the farmers’ cause.
He said the irrigation officials in the State should write a fresh letter in this regard considering the fact that the project would benefit the farmers in the drought-prone areas in not only Prakasam district, but also in the neighbouring SPSR Nellore and YSR Kadapa districts.
Krishna water dispute
Ahead of the September 1 meeting of the KRMB, Mr. Ranga Rao maintained that sharing of the Krishna water between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in 70:30 ratio was a closed chapter and 50:50 sharing arrangement demanded by the upper riparian State was unjustified.
“The present arrangement should continue till the conclusion of the Krishna water dispute proceedings. Similarly, the upper riparian State of Karnataka should not go ahead with increasing the height of the Almatti Dam unilaterally without getting the nod of the KRMB,” he added.
