Palem Vagu project to be ready by May next.

The Palem-Vagu project in Bhoopalapally district will be completed by May next year, said Irrigation Minister T.Harish Rao recently.

The project was launched as an Engineering Procurement Contract by the then Congress government in 2005 but because of poor design problems, it was washed away twice. The TRS government rectified the design error, cancelled the EPC project and made it a non-EPC one, the Minister said in the Legislative Council.

The project with a 1.27 tmc reservoir would irrigate 10,500 acres in Kharif, 2017 and gates would be fixed in February. The project conceived at an estimated cost of ₹70 crore in 2005 but now had escalated to ₹230 crore. In last Kharif, 5,000 acres were irrigated and during this Rabi, 2,000 more acres would get water, he said.

The Phase -III works of Devadula project will be completed by 2018 and it would cover 1.5 lakh acres of ayacut in the drought areas of Jangaon region, he said. Land acquisition for about 6,000 acres was pending for the project and that was why government brought the new Land Acquisition Act, he said and urged for cooperation of all the party members. There was no dearth of water or funds for the project but only land acquisition should be completed.

He told TRS member Paturi Sudhakar Reddy that four reservoirs in Jangaon area would be completed to benefit 45 villages.

Devadula project in its entirety would irrigate 5.43 lakh acres and its capacity was being increased from 38 tmc to 60 tmc, he added.

THE HINDU