Demand for project gains momentum

Khammam: The demand for taking up Rajivsagar-Dummugudem Lift Irrigation project has intensified, with political parties launching stirs over the issue. The YSR Congress is the first party to come out in favour of the project and is demanding its completion by changing the design.

YSRC MP P. Srinivasa Reddy demanded that the TRS government begin work on the project. He wanted the design of the project changed so that the fields in Yellandu and Wyra could be irrigated by diversion of water.

CPI-M too has decided to follow the YSRC line. A team of the party’s leaders visited the project, where S. Malla Reddy said that the project was needed to wet the dry lands of Khammam. “The government should take up the project immediately. Plans to send the water to Nagarjunasagar should be scrapped and the project diverted to Khammam fields,” he demanded, adding that the government had already spent crores of rupees on it.

The CPI too is in favour of the project and conducted a meeting on the issue. The meeting was attended by many of the party’s leaders. Earlier, the AP government took up the project at a cost of Rs 9,300 crore, of which, Rs 1,650 crore have already been spent. As per the initial design, some 80 tmc feet of water from Godavari would be lifted from Aswapuram during monsoon and sent to the tail pond of Nagarjunasagar.