Southern States - Andhra Pradesh

`Govt. trying to get WB funds for SRSP flood flow canal scheme'

By Our Staff Reporter

WARANGAL April 18. The Major and Medium Irrigation Minister, Kadiam Srihari, said here that the financial agencies did not come forward to fund the flood-flow canal project of the Sriramsagar Project as the economics of the tie-up did not work out favourably.

Nevertheless, the State Government was trying to convince the World Bank to extend the loan as a social obligation, he told a meeting of the Water Users Associations (WUAs) of the district on Thursday.

Mr. Srihari said he had seen for himself the ongoing works on the head regulator and approach channel of the flood-flow canal at Nizamabad on Tuesday and expressed satisfaction at their progress. The State Government had okayed the price for the land acquisition as decided at the Lok Adalats locally, paving way for the speedy execution of flood-flow canal works.

Regarding the lift-irrigation scheme on the Godavari at Devadula in Warangal, the Minister said the survey for the project would be completed and the report submitted by December 31 this year.

Mr. Srihari spoke at length on the functioning of WUAs in the State and said some of them lagged behind in playing a positive role.

They got bogged down in controversies related to award of contracts for works without the members' consent. The presidents did not even convene general body meetings. Otherwise, most of the WUAs and distributary committees served well.

Stating that it was the intention of the State Government to give more autonomy to WUAs and strengthen the Farmers Management Irrigation Act under which they were formed, Mr. Srihari said the Government did not want to play an interventionist role in the matter. The Government wanted to increase the participation of the WUAs in improving the irrigation systems.

It was with the concept of `rights to ryots' that 10,292 WUAs and 172 distributary committees came into being through elections held in 1997 in pursuance of the provisions of the Act. The Government distributed Rs. 40.42 crores as incentives to the WUAs at the rate of Rs. 50,000 each where the bodies were elected unopposed and Rs. 30,000 where they were elected in a contest.

An amount of Rs. 1,300 crore was taken as loan from the World Bank under the Andhra Pradesh Economic Restructuring Programme (APERC), of which Rs. 640 crore was meant exclusively for tanks and canals repairs to be taken up by WUAs. Nearly 50,000 works have so far been completed at a cost of Rs. 460 crore and a gap ayacut of 10 lakh acres has been created.

Mr. Srihari praised the role of WUAs and distributary committees in bridging the gap ayacut even under the SRSP distributories which was almost 5,000 to 10,000 acres earlier. Quoting an example, he said one particular distributary had a localised ayacut of 28,000 acres but the irrigated area was never more than 8,000 acres.

The WUAs and distributary committees increased the irrigation potential of this distributary to 25,000 acres.

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