Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao on Thursday announced plans to restructure the state’s Irrigation department into 11 circles with each section to be headed by a chief engineer. The state now intends to bring all irrigation department engineering sections under one roof to enable better coordination.
The Chief Minister also instructed department officials to fill all vacancies in the department by June last week to meet the state’s plan of lifting 530 tmcft (thousand million cubic feet) water from the Godavari river to fill all tanks. The Chief Minister instructed officials to repair all the irrigation canals before the monsoon begins this year.
KCR also expressed his intent to convert the 850 acres covered by the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project (KLIP) into a tourist hub and asked the newly appointed Irrigation Principal Secretary to formulate plans for this purpose.
The Chief Minister said that the state expects to complete construction of 160 check dams in the erstwhile Karimnagar district that are part of the KLIP which are being built at a cost of Rs 1,000 crore by May-June this year.
KCR also stated that a new collectorate would be built in place of the existing one at Karimnagar and asked the state’s Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar to expedite the sanctioning process, however, fund details were not divulged. The state also plans to take up riverfront development at Manair Dam and a cable stay bridge to be built for tourism purpose.
The decisions were taken at a review meeting with Irrigation department officials and ministers after a visit to the Laxmi barrage (Medigadda) of KLIP in Karimnagar. The CM also did an aerial view of the Medigadda barrage and dropped coins into the Godavari, thus fulfilling one of his promises during the Telangana state agitation.