The breach to the Polavaram right main canal on Saturday night has become the cause of embarrassment to the State government, happening as it did a little more than a day after Irrigation Minister Devineni Umamaheshwara Rao claimed to have switched on the motors to make the Pattiseema lift irrigation scheme operational.
Sources said that the pumps were not in fact put in place and that the scheme did not become operational. The completion, as claimed by the government, was only notional.
The Pattiseema project is part of Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu’s pet scheme of linking the Godavari and the Krishna. It is designed to pump Godavari flood water into the Polavaram right main canal which transports it on to the Krishna. The confluence was notionally celebrated by the Chief Minister on September 16 and certified as achieved when Mr Umamaheshwara switched on the ‘pump’ on Friday.
But the collapse of an aqueduct in the canal a day later brought to light facts that the confluence was only notional. The pumps requisitioned from China for the Pattiseema project had not arrived by the September 16 deadline set by the Chief Minister, and makeshift pumps had to be brought from the Handri-Neeva project in Kurnool district for the purpose.
Sources in the latter project site confirmed to The Hindu that they did send one of their pumps for ‘testing’ at Pattiseema.
Further, sources at the Pattiseema site said even the borrowed pumps did not achieve the government’s purpose of achieving the operationalisation of the project. Highly placed sources said no water was in fact released from the Pattiseema project as claimed by irrigation officials.
They added that installation of the 4.71 MV motor and two new pumps, each with a capacity to pump 354 cusecs of water per hour, at Pattiseema has not yet been done as the equipment has still not arrived from China.
Due to the delay, the sixth pump and motor of the Handri-Neeva project was hurriedly transported from Kurnool on September 12 by the chief engineer of the Handri-Neeva project. It reached the Kalaparru toll gate on the morning of September 13 and reached Pattisam village even as engineers worked round the clock to meet the September 16 deadline.
Sources said the superintendent engineer of Pattiseema was told on September 14 that release of water should be achieved on the morrow so that the Godavari-Krishna confluence could be really, and not notionally, achieved on September 16.
On the other hand, the chief engineer of Handri-Neeva is said to have been told that whenever the Chinese shipment reached Pattiseema, the two borrowed pumps would be sent back.
Sources said the breach to the Polavaram canal is no way connected to the Pattiseema waters. They said it was only due to the pressure mounted on engineers that the incomplete Polavaram right canal was patched up for the confluence function, and therefore was vulnerable to heavy inflows
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