Pattiseema Lift Irrigation Scheme
(→Launch of Pattiseema project: 2015) |
|||
| Line 34: | Line 34: | ||
'''Hope flows as Godavari meets Krishna''' | '''Hope flows as Godavari meets Krishna''' | ||
| + | |||
| | ||
''Major relief for dry Rayalaseema, farmers to benefit'' | ''Major relief for dry Rayalaseema, farmers to benefit'' | ||
Revision as of 18:06, 18 September 2015
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. |
Pattiseema Lift Irrigation Scheme
A history of the project
The Times of India, Sep 17 2015
Syed Akbar How Andhra CM linked rivers, delinked netas
The Pattiseema project will bring huge dividends to water-starved farmers of the Krishna Delta, reason both the TDP and YSR Congress have been vying with each other to claim credit for it.
TDP claims it completed the 174-km-long project that'll fetch flood water from Godavari to Krishna, YSR Congress alleges Naidu's government squandered public money and simply changed the project's name. It argues that most of the work on the Pattiseema (Polavaram) canal was completed during late CM YS Rajasekhara Reddy's tenure.
To claim sole credit, the TDP government removed the name `Indira' from Polavaram Indira Sagar.It had to convince Godavari delta farmers that diversion of 80 tmc ft of water to the Krishna delta, India's rice bowl, won't impact their irrigation interests. CM Chandrababu Naidu scored a political point when he said the 80 tmc ft water thus `saved' from the Srisailam and Nagarjunasagar dams on the Krishna could be diverted to Rayalaseema's parched districts.
Contrary to TDP's claim, Godavari and the Krishna have been `in terlinked' earlier. Andhra Pradesh, in fact, is south India's only state with all major rivers, Godavari, Krishna, Pennar and Tungabhadra, interlinked. Two of the three major linkages were carried out by the British. Almost 160 years ago Krishna was connected to Godavari albeit for navigation. Today's Pattiseema scheme is a pure irrigation one.The Eluru canals from Godavari and Krishna meet at Malkapuram village to form part of the Kakinada-Pondicherry Buckingham canal. The two Eluru canals also meet the Tammileru rivulet that drains into the Kolleru lake.
More recently the Telugu Ganga Project that supplies drinking water to Chennai, connected Krishna with Pennar and with Kandaleru before reaching Chennai. Then, over 130 years ago river Tungabhadra was joined to Pennar via the Kurnool-Cuddapah (KC) canal.
The Pattiseema, however, is the first intra-state project that's seen completion under the revised national river linking project. The mega project meets Krishna delta's irrigation needs and brings large volumes of Godavari's waters into river Krishna, upstream of Vijayawada's Prakasam Barrage.
Launch of Pattiseema project: 2015
The Times of India, Sep 17 2015
Hope flows as Godavari meets Krishna
Major relief for dry Rayalaseema, farmers to benefit
With the launch of the Pattiseema lift irrigation scheme in Andhra Pradesh, the Godavari was formally connected with the Krishna, and the country took a large step towards its ambitious but long-pending goal to interlink major rivers to eventually form a national water grid. The 174-km Pattiseema project is not part of the original nationwide inter-state river-linking scheme -the first instance of the national project is the Ken-Betwa connection which will be launched in December 2015. However, its significance lies in the fact that it addresses water scarcity in Rayalaseema region and is the first major intra-state river-linking plan.
The Pattiseema project lifts flood water from the Godavari and pumps it into the Polavaram right canal that empties into the river Krishna in Vijayawada. The interlinking of Godavari-Krishna has been on the anvil for almost five decades. Thousands of farmers in Krishna, Guntur, Prakasam, Kurnool, Kadapa, Anantapur and Chittoor districts will gain from the Godavari-Krishna linkage. About 17 lakh acres including 13 lakh acres in the Krishna delta will get assured irrigation water for two crops round the year. Thousands of villages en route will get drinking water supplies.
The next in the pipeline under the national project is the interlinking of Ken (Madhya Pradesh) and Betwa (Uttar Pradesh) rivers. Though Ken-Betwa was touted to be the first river interlink project, under the revised national scheme, AP chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu hurried through the scheme and completed it in record eight months.
The national river interlink project was first conceived about two centuries ago by British engineer Sir Arthur Cotton, who designed the anicuts across the Godavari at Dhowlaiswaram and the Krishna in Vijayawada.The idea was revived by eminent engineer-politician Dr KL Rao about five decades ago.The Polavaram-Vijayawada link was proposed by Dr Rao.Later, TDP founder-president and former chief minister NT Rama Rao and former chief minister YS Rajasekhar Reddy too played a key role on the Andhra project.
At the national level, the river interlinking project will benefit millions of farmers in north India and down the Vindhyas. The Centre has proposed to create 3,000 storage tanks. A whopping 174 billion cubic metres (BCM) of water will be distributed through canals that run for 14,900 km across the county.
The Centre has also appointed a high-powered task force on the interlinking of the rivers, which once completed will bring an additional 35 million hectares under irrigation. The task force has been given a deadline of 2016 to submit its report.
