All-party meet on Pulichintala soon

By Our Staff Reporter

VIJAYAWADA, MAY 23. The Government will convene an all-party meeting in a couple of days to discuss Pulichintala and other pending irrigation projects in the State, Mr. Vadde Sobhanadreeswara Rao, Minister for Agriculture and Horticulture, has said.

The Minister said on Wednesday, the Pulichintala project was being unnecessarily opposed by those who were trying to whip up regional differences. The construction of the balancing reservoir with the capacity to hold 40 TMC of water discharged from Nagarjunasagar would benefit farmers even in the Telangana region.

The Pulichintala reservoir would help optimise the use of water for power generation at Srisailam and Nagarjunasagar and take water even to the tail-end areas. Water used for power generation during the non-agriculture season was now going waste into the Bay of Bengal. The Pulichintala reservoir would put an end to this wastage. Equal quantum of water can be used for cultivation of crops in the Telangana districts, he explained.

In all irrigation projects, some land and a few villages would be submerged and the leaders would be indulging in ``criticism without foresight'' if they opposed the Pulichintala project, he said adding that those living in the villages that would be submerged would be properly relocated. The project would not create additional ayacut in any way but the 12 lakh acres ayacut in the Krishna delta would be stabilised. There was however scope to generate 190 mega watts of power, he said.

Referring to the criticism of the Congress party, the Minister said that even at the time the Congress(I) party was in power, both at the Centre and in the State, and the Minister concerned with the pending irrigation projects was a man belonging to the State, he could not get a single pending project cleared.

The Minister said it was unbecoming of a leader of Mr. Rosaiah's stature to criticise the `Neeru-Meeru' programme which had united faction-ridden villages for the first time since independence. People were putting aside their religious differences to work together.

About the Inchampalli project, he said the Central Government had a very big role to play and it would be discussed at the all- party meeting to be held shortly.

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