HYDERABAD: Irrigation Minister N Uttam Kumar Reddy has set December 31, 2027 as the deadline for officials and contractors to complete the Devadula project.
On Saturday, the minister held a review meeting with officials on the progress of the project, which is being constructed at a cost of Rs 18,400 crore to provide irrigation water to 5.57 lakh acres across 10 districts in Telangana.
During the meeting, the minister undertook an exhaustive package-wise review covering physical progress, financial status, land acquisition, court cases, pending distributary systems, contractor delays, ayacut creation and funding requirements.
He said that the project, originally launched at an estimated cost of Rs 6,016 crore during 2004-05, had now escalated to around Rs 18,400 crore due to increases in construction costs, GST revisions, land acquisition compensation, electricity charges, inflation, revised designs and additional works taken up over the years.
"The government has so far spent Rs 14,422 crore on the project, while another Rs 3,978 crore is required to complete the remaining works," he added.
The minister stated that the project had already achieved 87.70 percent physical progress, noting that canal lining works, distributary systems, delay in completion of some structures and land acquisition continued to delay full utilisation of the created infrastructure.
Land acquisition emerged as one of the biggest bottlenecks during the review. Officials stated that of the total requirement of 34,622 acres, nearly 31,963 acres had already been acquired, while 2,659 acres were still pending.
The minister instructed officials to immediately move all pending land acquisition cases to the token stage and expedite the award and compensation disbursal process.
Officials also informed the minister that nearly 39,651 acres proposed under the ayacut had undergone rapid urbanisation in certain stretches and were being considered for deletion from the proposed command area after detailed survey verification.
The process is expected to be completed within 10 days. This is expected to reduce unnecessary irrigation demand and avoid excessive land acquisition expenditure.
Uttam directed officials to identify stalled packages and immediately initiate closure and retendering wherever required. “Where contractors are not working, close the contracts and retender the works immediately. Valuable irrigation potential should not remain blocked because of administrative delays,” he said.
Stressing the larger significance of the project, he said completion of Devadula would not only irrigate lakhs of acres but also substantially improve drinking water availability in several drought-prone villages across Telangana.
