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Telangana irrigation minister Uttam Kumar Reddy on September 3 sought an early No Objection Certificate (NOC) from Chhattisgarh for the Sammakka Sarakka barrage. Minister Uttam met with Chattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai in New Delhi and assured that full compensation for land and houses submerged by the project would be duly made.
“We request the Chattisgarh government to issue the NOC at the earliest to enable us to store water fully in the barrage,” he said. The barrage, located across the Godavari at Tupakulagudem in Kannaigudem mandal of Mulugu district, is 1,143 metres long and has 59 radial gates. It has a designed storage capacity of 6.94 TMC at a full reservoir level of +83 metres and is envisaged to divert 46.96 TMC of Godavari water for irrigation.
The Congress-led government is handling administrative approvals and interstate submergence disputes for the project. The construction of the Sammakka Sarakka barrage was completed under the previous BRS-led government.
The project is aimed primarily at stabilising irrigation over 4.40 lakh acres covered by Stage-II of the Sriram Sagar Project (SRSP), which has been receiving inadequate water from its existing source. It is also expected to bring 30,000 acres of fresh ayacut under irrigation through the Ramappa-Pakhal Link Canal, strengthen irrigation coverage under the Devadula Lift Irrigation Scheme and supply drinking water to villages situated along the project route.
The proposed irrigation coverage under SRSP Stage-II is spread across five districts. Suryapet accounts for the largest share at 2,34,199 acres, followed by Mahabubabad (96,494 acres), Khammam (85,774 acres), Warangal (22,422 acres) and Jangaon (1,111 acres). The new ayacut under the Ramappa-Pakhal component will cover 8,000 acres in Mulugu and another 22,000 acres in the Narsampet constituency of Warangal district.
As part of the preparatory work, Telangana has released Rs 9.88 crore to the Chhattisgarh Water Resources Department in Bijapur for assessing the likely backwater impact.
