Hyderabad: Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has given the go ahead to the Sita Rama Lift Irrigation Project in Bhadradri-Kothagudem district in Telangana.
The Rs 13,384.80-crore project aims at irrigating nearly 2.73 lakh hectares of land. The project is scheduled to be completed in three years.
Water from Godavari river will be utilised by accessing it from a head regulator at Dummagudem anicut.
There is a need for the construction of a 372 km-long canal, four pumphouses, a delivery cistern, nine km of pipeline and cross drainage structures.
The total land requirement for the project is 8,476 hectares of which 1,531 hectares is forest land.
The Sita Rama Lift Irrigation project was re-designed to rectify certain critical deficiencies in terms of hydrology, location, unresolved inter-state aspects and storage requirements.
The basic approval for the project was given by the Environment Assessment Committee (EAC) during a meeting held on November 27, 2018. Project Chief Engineer, V Sudhakar got a letter of approval from the ministry that stated that environment approvals have been granted for the Sitarama Lift Irrigation Project. The permit will last 10 years.
The project aims to stabilise irrigation in 1,39,836 hectares of land in Khammam, Bhadradri-Kothagudem and Mahbubabad districts. The project is expected to benefit at least 180 villages.
Chief minister Chandrasekhar Rao had met Prime Minister Modi and environment minister Harsha Vardhan on his visit to Delhi in December 2018