Andhra Pradesh Minister Water Resources Minister Devineni Umamaheswara Rao on Sunday said that a delegation from his department will visit New Delhi sometime during the next week, and will be ready to clear all doubts raised by the Centre on the Polavaram project.
The Minister was speaking at an event to commemorate the 116th birth anniversary of former Union Minister KL Rao.
“The officials will submit all the necessary documents to the Ministry of Water Resources and Central Water Commission. We also plan to complete the concrete work of the national project by February,” Umamaheswara Rao told reporters.
“This is in tune with the advice of Union Minister for Water Resources Nitin Gadkari,” he added.
The Polavaram project is a major multi-purpose irrigation project being constructed on the Godavari River, and spread across three states – Andhra, Odisha and Chhattisgarh. A dam is currently under construction in West Godavari and East Godavari districts of Andhra.
The project will lift water from the Godavari River near Tadipudi village in West Godavari District and pump it through the Main Canal into the 20 TMC capacity Jalleru reservoir, and then supply water to West Godavari and Krishna Districts.
A total of 17,800 acres of land – 6,600 acres of forestland and 11,200 acres of revenue land – spread across 127 villages in four constituencies of West Godavari district – Polavaram, Chintalapudi, Gopalavaram and Denduluru – is being acquired for the project.
Read: Ground Report: How an irrigation project in Andhra is disrupting the lives of tribals, villagers
The state has said that the process of land acquisition is being done through the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013.
According to the Andhra government’s own estimate, the project will displace more than three lakh Adivasis in the area, and submerge close to 300 villages.
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