Bhima lifts farmers’ spirits

Published Date: 1/28/2007 - (NIE)
V L SRINIVASAN
Mahboobnagar, Jan 27:
The nearly three-decade-old wait of farmers of the backward areas of five Assembly segments in the district, seeking water to irrigate their lands, will come to an end when their dream project – Rajiv (Bhima) Lift Irrigation scheme – will be commissioned in June 2008.The project was conceived in the early 1980s to lift 20 TMCFT water from the foreshore of Priyadarshini Jurala Project to provide irrigation facilities for 2.03 lakh acres in Wanaparthy, Amarachinta and Maktal Assembly segments and part of Alamur and Kollapur besides drinking water facility to parts of these areas. However, successive Governments failed to launch the project for various reasons and the project cost escalated from less than Rs 100 crore to Rs 1,400 crore as on today.It was in November 2004 that Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy laid the foundation and the project has progressed at brisk pace since then. Water would be drawn from Panchadevpadu village for Lift-I and at Ookachetty Vagu Pondage for Lift-II. The civil and mechanical works are in progress and 75 per cent of the canal work is already completed. Orders have already been placed with Brazillian firms for supply and erection of motors and they would be installed a couple of months before the commencement of Kharif in 2008.Unlike the usual practice of releasing water in a phased manner, the officials have planned in such a manner that the entire proposed ayacut would receive water simultaneously. “Our elders told us that there would be no problem once Bhima project was completed. It will soon become a reality,” Srinivasu, a farmer owning 10 acres land at Tirumalayipalli village, told a team of reporters who visited project on Friday.Srinivasu is among the thousands of small and marginal farmers in the district who hope that Bhima and two other lift irrigation schemes – Nettempadu and Kalwakurthy – would put an end to people migrating to other places in search of work as these projects would irrigate an estimated 9 lakh acres in the district.“The previous Governments were so indifferent that though the Bachawat Tribunal allotted 20 TMCFT water for Bhima, 16 TMCFT for Rajolibanda Diversion Scheme and 18 TMCFT to Jurala. But no efforts were made to construct projects till 2004,” Wanaparthy MLA and senior Congress leader G Chinna Reddy said.Though there are problems relating to Rehabilitation and Resettlement (R&R) of the families affected by the Bhima project (three villages will be fully submerged and two partly), officials are hopeful of sorting out the problem. Pace of works suggests succour by June 2008