Govt. plans to create new ayacut of 9.93 lakh acres

Will spend over ₹20,000 crore on expediting work on major and medium irrigation projects, says Harish Rao

The State government would spend a little over ₹20,000 crore on expediting the work on major and medium irrigation projects enabling creation of new ayacut of 9.93 lakh acres by the start of next kharif season.

The government has allocated ₹8,356 crore to the Irrigation Department in the current financial year, while the corporations created for different projects would raise loans to the tune of ₹12,302 crore, Finance Minister T. Harish Rao said. The government succeeded in creating 14 lakh acres of ayacut, including 12.7 lakh acres of new ayacut, and stabilised another 1.1 lakh acres in the current year.

Replying to the discussion on the demands for grants relating to Irrigation Department on behalf of Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, Mr. Harish Rao said the government has resolved to pump water from Kaleshwaram project to several areas in Nalgonda district, including Suryapet, in the ensuing rabi season itself. In addition to providing water through major projects, the government has successfully stabilised ayacut to the tune of 14.5 lakh acres through renovation and restoration of over 26,000 tanks under Mission Kakatiya project.

“The TRS government has set a benchmark in the expeditious completion of irrigation projects. While the Tumilla and Sriramadas projects were completed in nine months, the Kaleshwaram project was completed in just three-and-a-half years,” he said.

The commitment with which the government took up irrigation work could be seen from the fact that more than 7.5 lakh acres of ayacut has been created/stabilised in the erstwhile Mahabubnagar district, which was drought-prone. The first of its kind projects like Mission Kakatiya and Mission Bhagiratha received accolades from different States as well as Niti Ayog and these work was being replicated in other States.

Highway density

The State government has proposed to develop 3,823 km of roads into highways in the current financial year and proposals have been sent to the Central government in this regard, Roads and Buildings Minister Vemula Prashanth Reddy told the Assembly.

The Centre has given its consent for 1,366 km roads, while proposals for 1,700 km roads have been accepted in principle.

The government has been waiting for clearances for another 688 km roads after which the State would surpass the national average in highway density. The Minister refuted the Congress’ charge that huge amount of dues has to be cleared and asserted that while work worth over ₹13,000 crore has been taken up in the past five years, dues amounting to ₹1,200 crore, less than 10%, were to be paid to the contractors. The government has initiated the process of raising ₹1,000 crore loan, while another ₹1,500 crore would be mobilised from different sources to ensure speedy completion of the pending work, he said.

Rapid urbanisation

Municipal Administration Minister K.T. Rama Rao said the government has adopted a multi-pronged approach to ensure that the demands rising out of rapid urbanisation across the State were addressed. Accordingly, the government has been focusing on decentralisation and planned development in the municipal areas in addition to introducing reforms in the administrative processes. It is challenging task to meet the emerging requirements in time, but the government has initiated several IT measures like developing permission management systems to ensure transparency in administration and ease of processes for citizens to obtain building permissions and other needs.

The government is in the process of taking up work on sewerage treatment plants for treating solid and liquid wastes in urban areas. In the twin cities for instance, sewerage of 1,800 million litres is generated every day, while the existing treatment plants have capacity to process only 700 MLD. “We are looking at public private partnership model for enhancing the capacity to meet the existing and emerging requirements,” he said.

The House passed the demands for grants relating to Irrigation, Roads and Buildings, Municipal Administration and Energy Departments on Tuesday, while discussion on Panchayat Raj and Rural Development Department was postponed in the absence of Minister E. Dayakar Rao, who was away supervising the rescue work relating to the Devipatnam boat tragedy in East Godavari district.

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