Irrigation staff face a bleak future

Hyderabad: The 455 employees of the Andhra Pradesh State Co-operative Rural Irrigation Corporation Limited (APSCRIC) face a bleak future, as the cash reserves for their salaries would last only for couple of months more.
The APSCRIC was started in 1981 to undertake in-well drilling, to revitalise existing wells and new surface bore wells of small and marginal farmers, weaker sections, and Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes farmers.The activities were later extended to drilling of blast holes in mines, and construction of check dams entrusted by government and other organisations.
However, the once self-sustaining and profit-making organisation has been neglected by the government departments in allocating works despite a government order MS 420, dated April 4, 2000, declaring the APSCRIC as the ‘Nodal Agency’ for undertaking all drilling activities, blast holes, minor lift-irrigation works and check dams sponsored by the government. The government order further directs government departments to utilise the services of the APSCRIC by giving them work orders for schemes implemented.
Even the panchayat raj and rural development department, in a memo dated August 8, 2001, had requested all district collectors to ensure that the services of the APSCRIC were utilised for the works implemented under the Rural Water Supply Scheme.
According to union general secretary V Abraham Rao, the APSCRIC had executed works worth Rs 22 crore in 1999.
But during the past three years it got only works worth Rs 15.51 crore. From 1998 onwards there has been a reduction in government orders due to various factors, including cut in subsidy to in-well bores by the government, he said. According to sources, the officials of other government departments favour private contractors and are “not interested� in placing orders with the APSCRIC, as they do not get any “additional benefits�.
“Adding to the financial troubles of the APSCRIC is the pending payment of nearly Rs 1.4 crore from the Singareni Collieries Company Limited and more than Rs 1.60 crore deposited in the now defunct Bhagyanagar Co-operative Bank Limited,� Abraham Rao said.
The Andhra Pradesh State Co-operative Rural Irrigation Corporation Limited would survive if the government departments allocate even a minor share of the works being implemented under various rural schemes, he said.