VIJAYAWADA/KURNOOL: Other than the Gundrevula project on the Tungabhadra River, the Vedavathi Lift Irrigation Scheme is a much-debated topic among the agriculture community in Kurnool district after the recent crest gate washout of the Tungabhadra dam.
The then Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu laid the foundation stone for the project in March 2019. The project taken up at an estimated cost of Rs 1,942 crore is yet to be completed.
Retired deputy executive engineer and designer of Vedavathi scheme M Subbarayudu wrote a letter to Naidu recently, urging him to take up the project on a priority basis.
Once completed, the project will become a lifeline of the western parts of Kurnool district and stabilise the Low-Level Canal (LLC) and High-Level Canal (HLC) tail-end reaches, besides creating a new ayacut of 80,000 acres, he explained.
The Vedavathi scheme of 80 metre lift on the Vedavathi River at Gulyam village was first envisaged in December 2011 to combat drought in Kurnool. It took eight long years to convince the State government to give administrative sanction for the project.
Former minister and present MLA of Dhone Kotla Surya Prakash Reddy has played an important role in taking forward the lift irrigation scheme. The project contract was bagged by Megha Engineering and Infrastructures Limited for Rs 1,607.72 crore.
In 2020, one-and-a-half years after the commencement of the project, Subbarayudu pursued its progress with the YSRC government. He found the progress of the project was at a snail’s pace, and it was attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic. Out of the project cost of Rs 1,607 crore, only Rs 50 crore was spent on it.
“I found that the misery of people of western parts of Kurnool district will continue for another 3-4 years. Hence, to provide sufficient water to the LLC ayacut at the earliest, I submitted a new proposal namely a mini-lift of 20 metre at Gulyam on Vedavathi to chainage 156 km of LLC, through a pipeline of about 4 km length. The lifted water can directly be let into the LLC. The entire length of 4 km will be within the limits of Andhra Pradesh. In the LLC system, there are already several summer storage tanks and they can be filled. No extra distributary systems or reservoirs are required. The mini-lift will only need three pumps of 354 cusecs capacity (one standby) and the entire process can be completed within four months,” he explained in the letter to Naidu.
In August 2022, when he pursued the matter, Subbarayudu learnt that the proposal was ignored, and the project works of the Vedavathi 80 metre lift did not gain pace at all. Payments to the contractor too were pending. Subbarayudu again approached the then government and urged it to release the amount so the contract agency could resume the project works, but in vain.
Naidu who constructed the Pattiseema Lift Irrigation Scheme, should focus on Vedavathi and complete the 80-metre and 20-metre lift irrigation projects, and also pursue the matter of Amrutha Sagar Reservoir on Vedavathi as bridge-cum-barrage with the Karnataka government to benefit the western parts of Kurnool.
Kotla said from the beginning, his focus has been on drinking and irrigation water needs. “That is why, I aspire to complete the Vedavathi and Gundrevula projects. If these two projects are completed, not only Kurnool but also Anantapur and Kadapa will receive water for both drinking and irrigation needs. The Chief Minister has responded positively to my plea to complete the irrigation project at the earliest,” the Dhone MLA said.
J Veeraiah of Joharapuram in Aspari mandal said, “If the Vedavathi Project is completed, there will be no drinking water problem in Aluru Assembly segment. Even in the rainy season, we are forced to walk miles to get just two pots of drinking water from the fields. Due to the water scarcity, the local youth are migrating to other places for livelihood.”