Soon Polavaram canals may get water - TeluguPeople.com News

Hyderabad : Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu is toying with the idea of going for a lift irrigation scheme to pump Godavari water into the canals that were already built as part of the Polavaram multipurpose irrigation project. If this idea takes shape, it would speed up works and a canal system that was constructed at a cost of Rs 5,000 crore would be properly utilized.

Though canals on both left and right sides of Polavaram project were built over the last five years, they remain unused as the main dam's construction works have not seen much progress due to various issues including controversies over the designs, rehabilitation of displaced, cost factors and engineering challenges.

As a result, the huge investment made into the construction of canals is likely go waste as prolonged period of disuse might damage the system. Moreover, it is a capital waste as farmers are not getting any benefit out of these canals anytime soon. If one were go to by the experience and the controversies that surround the project, it may take another 7 to 10 years to build the dam.

But, to keep these canals without use till then would be a bad idea in view of the immense hopes the farmers and general public have pinned on the project. So, going in for an alternative ' of fixing pumps and lifting water through power and supplying river water to the canals would be an ideal proposition, as per the Chief Minister's thinking.

The pumps here do not have to lift water beyond 30 meters height to supply water into canals, which is a lower height compared to other projects like Pranahita-Chevella which involve lifting water from a mean height of close to 200 meters. Moreover, the entire lift pumps set up might not need an investment more than Rs 150 crore.

Even this money too can be recovered within a span of two years from the savings in power consumption farmers would be making from their agriculture pump sets presently.

The pumps scheme can help raise the ground water table in the downstream of Polavaram dam, besides irrigating at least 2 lakh acres of ayacut. However, it may be recalled that reservations were expressed in some quarters when two other lift schemes ' Tadipudi and Pushkaram ' were built downstream of Polavaram dam site seven years ago.

Then, the experts in the government had argued that these two lifts were necessary as the main Polavaram dam construction would another take 7 to 8 years. Ironically, same is the situation now too.

Even going by the challenges involved in the construction of dam like the level of flood to Godavari and the humongous task of rehabilitating the displaced would require the same time. Moreover, the pump scheme would obviate displacing lakhs of tribal people in the upstream.