BALASORE: At a time when the coastal district is facing crop loss due to lack of irrigation facilities, around 50 per cent of lift irrigation projects are lying defunct. The district has eight lift irrigation (LI) divisions and almost half of the projects are non-functional. Of 1371 LI points, 648 are now non-operational.
The poor condition of the LI projects is assigned to swindling of funds by the contractors engaged in carrying out the work. Each LI project costs between `eight lakh and `10 lakh. Apparently, construction of most of the projects has not been done as per the specifications.
Starting from drilling through country-made low cost machines to use of sub-standard pipes and grabbles, the contractors have compromised with every aspect of the work to misappropriate money.
An official requesting anonymity said at Chitapada near Khantapada, the LI point should have be drilled through the track mounted mud rotary rig machine. But, the contractor was found doing the underground boring through a country-made low cost machine. While each metre of boring through mud rotary rig machine costs around `1,200, the country machine cost for one metre drilling is only `250. Usually 500 to 1,000 metres are drilled for an LI project depending on the ground water level. Most of these projects are lying defunct as the LI points were not properly drilled and required amount of quality grabbles not used.
Mechanical Engineer of Balasore division, Premanjan Panda said the projects could not be supervised effectively due to shortage of staff. Panda, who was assigned to renew work on the projects, said it was impossible on his part to verify all the 648 LI projects single handedly. However, he has stopped works on Chitapada and Jaleswar projects after receiving complaints about poor standard of work.
On the other hand, Executive Engineer Srinibas Nayak said the projects lying defunct are old projects. Last year, around 60 LI projects were dug up and work is being implemented by construction firm Mega India, he added.