HYDERABAD: With the change in designs and also to acquire more land, the irrigation department revised the cost estimates for two projects, Sita Rama lift irrigation project and SRSP flood flow canal, on Thursday. Due to increase in the design discharge and capacities of pumping stations, the requirement of power will also increase correspondingly for the Sita Rama Lift Irrigation Project (SRLIP), according to the orders issued by special chief secretary (Irrigation) SK Joshi.
Due to increase of design discharge, the land acquisition widths were increased and resulted in an increase in land acquisition extent and forest extent. The land acquisition proposed in the detailed project report (DPR) was for 3,743 hectares of private land, 1,735 hectares of government land and 1,924 hectares of forest land, totalling 7,402 hectares. In the preliminary report it was proposed to acquire private lands of 2,900 ha, government lands of 1,800 ha and forest lands of 1,100 ha _ totalling 5,800 ha.
As per the initial land acquisition cost, the government issued administrative sanction in February 2016 for construction of Integrated (Rajiv Sagar and Indira Sagar) Dummugudem Lift Irrigation Scheme, now named Sita Rama Lift Irrigation Project, to irrigate an ayacut of 5 lakh acres in Khammam district at an estimated cost of Rs 7,926.14 crore. Now, the estimated cost has been revised upwards to Rs 13,057.98 crore, which is Rs 5,131.833 crore more than the previous estimate.
The orders stated that the revised DPR for phase-1 ayacut proposed was 6.74 lakh aces (which includes new ayacut 3.38 lakh acres and stabilised ayacut of 3.45 lakh acres), whereas in the preliminary DPR the ayacut proposed was only 5 lakh acres.The water proposed to be conveyed in the SRLIP main canal in the revised DPR is 9,000 cusecs (254.85 cumecs) whereas in the preliminary report it was 4,545 cusecs (128.69 cumecs).