The first phase of the long-pending Pula Subbaiah project will be completed by September 2020, according to Prakasam Collector P. Bhaskar.
“Water from the Krishna will be supplied to farmers through the project at any cost by October this year,” the Collector said while reviewing the progress of the tunnel works along with Joint Collector J. Venkata Murali at the Veligonda project office at Dornala on Thursday.
“There is no dearth of funds for the project. Permission has been accorded to mobilise workers from other States to speed up the drilling work. With over 701 m of the 18.820 km-long Tunnel I still to be completed, the drilling work would be taken up on a war footing from both sides to complete the project by September 2020,” he said.
Like other major irrigation projects, this project, which envisaged drawing floodwaters from the Krishna through twin giant tunnels, had suffered a delay in the wake of the lockdown announced to combat coronavirus.
A prestigious project taken up by former Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy under ‘Jalayaganam’ to drought-proof the district, the project had missed several deadlines. It is again set to miss the latest deadline of August 2020 set by Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy during his visit to the project site in February this year.
The first phase of the project had been designed to irrigate 1.19 lakh acres and provide drinking water to four lakh people by drawing 10 tmcft of water from the foreshore of Srisailam reservoir.
