Vijayawada: Twenty Point Programme Implementation Committee Chairman Lanka Dinakar thanked Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu for considering his request to link the Nallamala Sagar project (Veligonda Project) with the Bollapalli Reservoir to supply Godavari water. He observed that the interlinking of the Krishna and Godavari rivers would transform the drought and fluoride-affected western area of Prakasam district and boost development in the region.
Dinakar spoke at a press meet at the Secretariat in Velagapudi on Thursday and explained the background to the government’s decision. Dinakar said that there was a critical drinking water scarcity in severely fluoride-affected constituencies, including Kanigiri, Yerragondapalem, Markapur, Donakonda, Marripudi, Cheemakurti, Udayagiri, and Maidukuru.
The Nallamala Sagar Project, also known as the Pula Subbaiah Veligonda Project, is designed with a storage capacity of 53.850 TMC and will receive floodwater from the Srisailam Project reservoir via gravity. To make water available in the project regularly, another source of water, the Veligonda project reservoir, is proposed to link with the project of transporting Godavari water to Rayalaseema.
Dinakar recollected that he submitted a representation to the Chief Minister, Nara Chandrababu Naidu, advocating the linkage of the Bollapalli Reservoir with the Veligonda project on January 1.
Following the invitation from Irrigation Minister Nimmala Rama Naidu, he attended a meeting with water resource officials on January 2. After a series of follow-ups, the officials found the project viable, and the Chief Minister officially declared the Bollapalli Reservoir-Veligonda project linkage on March 8.
Dinakar announced that 1009 of the district’s 1769 villages are fluoride-affected, with 850 in the western area. He said that Kanigiri constituency alone has 442 affected villages, while 230 villages have fluoride levels exceeding 2 PPM.
This river linkage project would provide safe drinking water to 60 lakh people and irrigation facilities to 7 lakh acres across western Prakasam, Nellore, and Kadapa districts, he emphasised.
Dinakar criticised former Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy for inaugurating the incomplete Veligonda project, where over 1000 displaced families remained without compensation, and which requires about Rs 3,000 crore to complete. He thanked the Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu and the ‘double-engine government’ leadership for sincerely trying to complete the Veligonda project, and linking it with the Godavari River, promising employment generation and industrial development alongside solving the region’s chronic water crisis.
