Eroded flood bank in East Godavari puts life in danger
People living in 12 villages apart from about
32,000 of agricultural land are facing immense danger of inundation due to the vulnerable flood banks in I. Polavaram mandal in East Godavari district.
The threat, that has been persisting for more than a year, was heightened due to further erosion of the circular flood bank when the Godavari was in spate recently. The erosion of marginal land took place at least for 10 mts completely exposing the flood bank in several places.
The cash-strapped irrigation department has kept repairs on hold though it may have to spend less than `70 crore. On the other hand, Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy is on a spree of announcing new irrigation schemes and barrages estimated to cost thousands of crores of rupees. “This raises serious doubts if the government is just playing to the gallery,” said an irrigation expert from the rice bowl district of the state.
Indeed, the Chief Minister laid the foundation stone with great fanfare on November 21 last year for the repair works during his visit to East Godavari. Keeping in view the foundation laying, the irrigation department hurriedly issued a GO just a day before (GO Rt 523, Dt
20.11.2019), giving administrative sanction for the works.
A year later,
● SOURCES SAID it is becoming a practice for the department to accord administrative sanction and keep tenders on hold due to paucity of funds. “What to do? The finance department rejects every proposal citing lack of funds,” lamented a senior official.
Adityanath Das, special CS, irrigation, recently directed the engineer-in-chief, irrigation, and chief engineer, Godavari delta system, not to float tenders for the work “protecting the most vulnerable, eroded or slipped river margins by providing pitching and revetments near Ramalayampet between 9 km and 11 km of the flood bank.”
Sources said it is becoming a practice for the department to accord administrative sanction and keep tenders on hold due to paucity of funds. “What to do? The finance
department rejects every proposal citing lack of funds,” lamented a senior official.
The top brass’ decision in the present case comes even after the government admitted that the flood waters have been hitting the marginal lands and flood bank directly and, coupled with tidal waves, the erosion on both the Gowthami Right Flood Bank and PIP flood bank is so high that the repair works have to be take up at the earliest.
Local farmers too are frightened because breach of the flood bank at one place will have a cascading effect and lead to breaches at many places as the 41-km flood bank is in circular shape. “Making the situation worse, the drains – North and South Addala Kalva and Perumallarajapuram — are also in spate and overflowing into the river, damaging the flood banks,” a farmer pointed out.