TDP’s water policies irk ryots

HYDERABAD: After land pooling, water rights is turning out to be a major issue in Andhra Pradesh with farmers from Kadapa to Kakinada raising their voice against the Telugu Desam Party (TDP)’s water management policies.
While farmers from Rayalaseema will meet at Kadapa on January 7 to discuss water rights and special status to the region as promised in the Andhra Pradesh Reorganization Act 2014, farmers from West Godavari are organizing a dharna before the West Godavari collectorate in Kakinada against the diversion of Godavari water to Krishna river on the pretext of supplying it to Rayalaseema.
Also, farmers from Krishna district’s delta region will organise a round table with farmers’ associations across the state against the proposed Pattiseema Lift Irrigation (LI) scheme being taken up on the Godavari.
“Even though its been more than six months since the formation of the new state, not a word has been said about the special status to Rayalaseema and north coastal Andhra as mentioned in the AP Reorganization Act,” said Narreddy Chandrasekhar Reddy, a leader from Kadapa district.
“The chief minister has become a prisoner of the proposed capital and thinks that there is no AP outside it. In these six months, not a day passed without talking about the capital. But neither the chief minister nor any other minister has raised the topic of special status for Rayalaseema and north coastal Andhra Pradesh,” Reddy told TOI.
Similarly, the head works of Potireddy Padu in Kurnool, the off-take point of water from Krishna to Rayalaseema, was in an extremely bad shape and the government had not taken any step to strengthen this structure, he said.
On January 7, Reddy said, they had invited all political parties, farmers’ organizations and intellectuals from across the state to discuss the matter and prepare the action plan to exert pressure on the government. Delta farmers’ leaders Erneni Nagendranath and Bharatiya Kisan Sangh general secretary Jalagam Kumara Swamy expressed apprehensions about government intention to take up the Polavaram project.
Talking to TOI, Nagendranath said instead of taking up the Polavaram project and completing it in four years, the government was taking steps to build a new lift irrigation project at a cost of Rs 1,300 crore. “This appears to be an alibi to postpone the construction of Polavaram project for which we had fought for decades. If the project is on the cards and is given national project status by the Centre, where is the need to spend Rs 1,300 crore public money on an entirely new project? If you are serious about Polavaram, isn’t it a waste of money to benefit contractors?” he alleged. He added that they would oppose tooth and nail the Pattiseema lift irrigation project. “We want the Polavaram project. Any attempt to postpone it will have serious consequences,” he warned.
The January 9 meeting in Vijayawada would demand the withdrawal of administrative sanction to Rs 1,300 crore on the lift irrigation project in Godavari, he said.
Going a step further, Jalagam Kumara Swamy alleged that the lift irrigation project was being taken up to benefit contractor-MPs of TDP. The farmers of West Godavari district would stage a dharna in protest against the lift irrigation schemes on January 5, he said.
“Farmers of the delta fear that the government is trying to shelve the Polavaram project. If Pattiseema lift irrigation scheme is taken up, the critics of Polavaram project and Telangana government would gain an upper hand and argue that when such schemes are serving the purpose, there is no need to build the Polavaram project. So, we want their cancellation and demand the early completion of Polavaram project,” Swamy said.