Harish wants Palamuru-RR project completed as scheduled

Hyderabad, Sept.29: Irrigation Minister T Harish Rao has directed the officials concerned to complete Palamuru-Rangareddy project as scheduled by acquiring land on war-footing. The Minister reviewed the progress of land acquisition for the Palamuru-Rangareddy project on Thursday at Jala Soudha. He reviewed the problems in acquiring land for the project along with the land acquired already. The land acquisition was going on in 18 packages. The Minister asked the Irrigation Department special chief secretary SK Joshi to initiate steps to avail services of two officials from the Geological Survey of India (GSI) on deputation to complete the survey at the earliest. Speaking on the occasion, Harish Rao said land acquisition was an important process for any irrigation project and asked the officials to take help of revenue officials, public representatives, MLAs and Ministers in acquiring the land for projects. He opined that the problems will be solved only when the Irrigation officials and contract companies worked in coordination like one family members. He asked the officials and contract companies’ representatives to convince the farmers and people and acquire the land peacefully. He also asked the officials to take the issue to the local MLA, Minister and district Collector if any problem arises in acquiring land. Making it clear that he will blame the irrigation officials for the delay in acquiring land for the projects, Harish Rao said the department has bounden duty to complete the projects on time. He suggested to the officials to acquire lands from the farmers expeditiously. He also asked the Mahbubnagar Collector to review land acquisition works every week as the Palamuru-Rangareddy project was a prestigious one. The project will be a gift to the drought-prone districts of Mahbubnagar, Ranga Reddy and Nalgonda. The Telangana government is aimed to provide water for 12.30 lakh acres in the three districts, he reminded and urged Panchayatraj Minister from Mahbubnagar Jupally Krishna Rao to take initiative to solve the ‘bottlenecks’ by reviewing the land acquisition works. It may be recalled that the Irrigation Department aimed to acquire 26,756 acres of land for Palamuru-Rangareddy Lift Irrigation Scheme. The Project chief engineer E Linga Raju said the department acquired 12779 acres till now. The department acquired 4229.09 acres of government land and 8504.77 acres of patta land from farmers, the CE said explaining that the department put its efforts to acquire 14022.77 acres land more for the project. Nagar Kurnool MLA Marri Janardhan Reddy, Irrigation secretary Vikas Raj, Mahbubnagar Joint Collector, Government advisor for lift irrigation schemes Penta Reddy, Palamuru-Rangareddy chief engineer Linga Raju, designs CE Narender Reddy, OSD Sridhar Rao Deshpande, SEs, EEs, representatives of contract companies participated in the review meeting.