HYDERABAD: The irrigation department officials are facing some peculiar challenges in executing the work relating to the construction of the gigantic Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme (KLIS). The challenges include not only technical problems but also traffic problems in Mumbai. The challenges also include the recent Panchayat elections in West Bengal and celebration of important festivals in north India like Holi.
The major technical challenge the officials are facing now is seepage of water in the construction of package seven of the KLIS in Dharmaram. The irrigation department in the last one month consulted IITians and also engaged the services of the experts to address the issue of water seepage.
Besides this, the construction of a flyover on ring road in Mumbai delayed the transportation of crucial equipment to the KLIS site. “We received the shipment from another country within 20 days, but it took us 30 days to transport the equipment by road from Mumbai to Medigadda. The heavy load truck could not pass under the under-construction flyover in Mumbai. It took us five days to find an alternative route from Mumbai port to come out of the city,” an official told Express. As the Maharashtra police and officials of other departments frequently stop and check the heavy trucks that are coming to Telangana, officials also spoke to Maharashtra Home Minster for clearing the obstacles.
Labour issues too hampered the work. During Holi, most of the workers hailing from north India went to their native places and returned to work 15 days later. “We offered double wages to those workers who stayed at the project sites and worked on Holiday. However, only a few workers stayed back,” Irrigation Minister T Harish Rao said. Most of the 25,000 labourers engaged in Kaleshwaram work were hired from states like Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal.
When the Panchayat elections were held recently in West Bengal, around 6,000 workers from KLIS sites went to their native places to cast their votes. It affected the progress of construction work at the project sites.
However, after going through news reports that around 34 per cent village panchayats in West Bengal refrained from contesting in the elections, officials Googled the names of such panchayats. Later, officials took flights and reached Kolkata and searched for the workers in such village panchayats. The officials provided bus facility to them from those village panchayats requesting them to come to Kaleshwaram sites again.
“We have been facing different types of challenges. But, we are successfully overcoming all of those hurdles with different kind of strategies in order to complete the KLIS work within the deadline,” Harish Rao explained.
Industrialists visit Kaleshwaram
A team of around 200 industrialists from as many as 20 industrial estates under Telangana Industrialists’ Welfare Federation visited Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme on Tuesday. Telangana State Industrial Infrastructure Corporation Limited (TSIIC) chairman Gyadari Balamallu led the team. They visited surge pool and 9.34 km tunnel in Dharmaram in Peddapalli district coming up under package-6 of KLIS.