Sripada Yellampalli irrigation project to become functional this year.

The Sripada Yellampalli project will become fully operational this year by storing its full reservoir storage of 20 tmc.

The obstacles for filling Yellampalli project to its gross storage capacity were cleared in the last one year. Storing water in Yellampalli means not only providing irrigation water to its ayacut but Hyderabad and as many as eight Assembly segments will get drinking water.

The Sripada Yellampalli project was started in 2004 by the then AP government as part of Jalayagnam. But, works like implementation of relief and rehabilitation package became a bottleneck for the officials to fully operationalise the project.

The full reservoir level of Yellampalli is 148 metres. However, officials could store water up to 144 metres last year fearing submergence of Rayapatnam barrage on Godavari, which connects Adilabad with Karimnagar. A new bridge constructed by the roads and buildings department will be opened for traffic in the next two to three days. Then, there will be no problem to store the water in Yellampalli up to 148 metres.

The project is designed to store 20 tmc of water at the Yellampalli project. It was also decided to lift about 6.5 tmc to NTPC Ramagundam for power generation requirement. Hyderabad will get 10 tmc for drinking water needs. Another eight Assembly segments, where piped water supply will be given to all households under Mission Bhagiratha, too will be provided water from Yellampalli.

Besides, two lakh ayacuts proposed under Yellampalli, water will also be supplied to Gudem Satyanarayana Lift Irrigation project in Adilabad to irrigate 30,000 acres and 25,000 acres out of 46,000 acres proposed under Manthani lift project in Karimnagar this year.

Five out of nine villages in Adilabad and four out of 12 villages to be submerged under Yellampalli have to be relocated.

“We are providing temporary shelters, toilets, food and other facilities to shift people from these nine villages,” Officer on special duty Sridhar Rao Deshpande told recently.

THE NEW INDIAN EXPRESS