Guest house on Krishna banks in eye of a storm

VIJAYAWADA: Though the Krishna River Conservation Act does not allow any construction on the river bank, several prominent persons have built  guest houses, multistoried buildings, residential houses on the flood banks of Krishna River near the Prakasam Barrage in Krishna and Guntur districts.

Surprisingly, no one has taken any action against the illegal constructions though the Lokayukta and Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the government have questioned the legality of the constructions.

Narsapuram MP, Gokarajau Gangaraju, had built a guest house next to the nature cure hospital several years ago. The irrigation officials said they had issued notices on October 18, 2010 – file number 103/I – against the illegal guest house.

As the case was not properly followed up by the officials, now many VIPs are inquiring about the availability of land to build guesthouses since the area is now in the race for the new capital city.

AP irrigation minister  Devineni Umamaheswara Rao said that the government would take action against the illegal constructions and that officials of his ministry were collecting data of illegal constructions from the field level.

However, MP Mr Gangaraju said that he had constructed the building 20 years ago and never received any notices from the irrigation department. He also asked that when nearly 100 buildings had been built on the Krishna flood banks, why was he being singled out.