Hyderabad: Former Vice President of National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and Founder-President of Forum for Godvari Water Euthalization, Mary Shashistha Reddy on Saturday, described the Polaram-Benkacharla river linkage project proposed by the Government of Andhra Pradesh, as “a white elephant”.
Reddy said that on August 6, he wrote to Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu that to release the proposal of the Polavaram-Banakkharala project which tries to remove Godavari water for the Krishna River and then the Penner Basin and follows the “concept of four-water” adopted by the Rajasthan government.
Former Chief Minister Dr. Mary Channa Reddy’s son Reddy recalled that during his earlier tenure as the Chief Minister of United Andhra Pradesh in 2000, Naidu started a “Neeru-Miru” program by forming a Water Conservation Mission (WCM) with several eminent experts, including late T Hanumantha Rao.
The expert committee recommended the implementation of Watershed Development Projects based on the four water -waters concept (FWC), which is effective use of rainwater, to soil moisture, groundwater and surface water to water table levels. He said that this technique emphasizes the techniques spreading in water, which is for the facility of recharging in groundwater in the upper areas of watershed, through mini percolaration tanks.
Reddy said that the plan launched in October 2001 included about 84 villages in Telangana and about 120 villages in Rayalaseema and it had achieved excellent results. For example, Sangredi District’s Kohir block of Kohir block was implemented at the cost of the scheme, in the village 5,000 per acre, provided water for three crops in a year continuously, ”he said.
He said that later, FWC was completely ignored in the Telugu states, it was successfully implemented in Rajasthan by Northern Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje Skindia, which was under “Mukhiyant Jal Swavalamban Abhiyan” (MJSA) between 2014 and 2018.
The irony is that a Telangana government engineer MD AFSAR went on deputation to implement the program in Rajasthan, he said.
Reddy appealed to Naidu, who sowed seeds for FWC during the tenure of United Andhra Pradesh in 2001, seriously to consider it as a viable, low-cost alternative to the Polavaram-Banakcharla project.
It can be implemented in about two years, which is capable of providing water for three crops annually for 3 million acres for total cost. 4,500 crores at the rate of 15,000 per acre at today’s rates. This will be a fraction of the minimum basic estimated cost 81,900 crores for the Polavaram-Banakkharala project, he said.
