THE STATE government has promised through an affidavit before the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court that it would complete the Gosikhurd irrigation project within the next three years. The affidavit was filed by Associate Advocate General Rohit Deo Thursday during the hearing on a petition by Jan Manch seeking a thorough probe into the irrigation scam that took place during the Congress-NCP regime. The petition said the Centre had given an in-principal sanction to Rs 19,694 crore for 26 irrigation projects in Maharashtra as part of a special incentive, of which Rs 5,606 crore was allotted for Gosikhurd project. Therefore, continuation proposal would be dispatched to the centre as soon as revised administrative approval is accorded. The project was granted ‘National’ status by the Centre on February 20, 2009, with 90 per cent funds coming from the Centre and it was also included under Accelerated Irrigation Benefit Programme (AIBP). It was supposed to irrigate about 2.50 lakh hectares, of which it had achieved a potential of 34,000 hectares.
