Polavaram Project in Andhra Pradesh would be completed within five years, Union water resources minister Uma Bharati announces in Lok Sabha.
On Thursday, Uma made this statement in Loksabha and speaking further, she said “There is no slow down of construction. It will be completed on time and the Centre is particular about releasing additional funds to the project for early completion,” Uma Bharati told YSR Congress member Kottapalli Geetha.
Concerned more than Naidu-Uma
She said, the central government is equally or in fact more concerned about completion of the project like Andhra Pradesh government and its Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu. Centre is taking all the possible steps for the movement of project,she assured. It was she who went to Niti Aayog with a request not to reduce the allotment to Polavaram project, Uma reminded Geetha.
The minister said the Centre is equally particular about ensuring resettlement and rehabilitation of all to those people who will be displaced and said “someone has to make sacrifices for a good project. We cannot avoid that”.
Project benefits.
She previously said that the Polavaram project is likely to displace about 1.88 lakh people in 222 villages, but so far 1,730 people in six villages have been rehabilitated. Speaking about the expenditure incurred, she said it totaled to Rs. 5575.35 crore. The project provides 24 TMC ft of water for industrial use, generates 960 MW of hydel power and expected to irrigate 2.91 lakh hectares.
Not only this, the project diverts 80 TMC ft of Godavari water to the Krishna Basin, apart from stabilising 10 lakh acres of existing Godavari Delta.
Uma was questioned by Professor Sitaram Naik, A.P. Jitender Reddy (TRS) and Gutta Sukhender Reddy (Congress) about the measures taken up for rehabilitation and resettlement of thousands of tribal people and demanded it should be done applying the new Land Acquisition Act provisions. Uma said that there would not be nay deviation and everything will be done according to the norms itself.
By Phani
