Krishna Valley project deadline expires

According to sources here, the works of 421 irrigation projects including 27 big, 39 medium and 355 minor projects had been undertaken by the MKVC that would benefits eight districts including Pune, Ahmednagar, Satara, Solapur, Kolhapur, Sangli, Usmanabad, Beed and others.

The expenditure of these projects was estimated at Rs 7,100 crore earlier, which now jumped upto Rs 11,660 crore from which some Rs 7,317 crore was to be spent till May 31, 2000, the sources said.

From this amount, however, actually Rs 4,964 crore was to be spent on project works, while Rs 3,353 crore towards interest payment, the sources said and pointed out the State Government needs further Rs 3,343 crore to complete the remaining works.

A total of 22 lakh hectare agricultural land will get water benefits after completion of the total project work. Since MKVC’s inception various project walls had been contructed and some irrigation dam works also, however, major works of the cannals to take the water to the farmers land has remained incomplete so far, the sources said.

Though, people from these areas, who lost their lands in projects, have not resisted the project works, however, the delay in the construction works and enhancement of the cost projects in a big way has taken its toll, the sources pointed out.

Citing an example, the sources said Kukadi irrigation project got administrative approval in 1966 with an estimated cost of Rs 31.18 crore, which has now been hiked to Rs 692.60 crore, while the Bhima project jumped up to Rs 769 crore from initial cost about Rs 40.51 crore.

Krishna project work got approval in 1967 with estimated cost of Rs 27.66 crore and so far Rs 303 crore had been spent on this project. Total expenditure would go up to Rs 600 crore, the sources gave another example.