Minister for Irrigation T. Harish Rao has said “Mission Kakaitya”, the programme taken up by the State government for restoration of minor irrigation tanks, is a challenge to the abilities of the engineers in the department as they have to restore and revive over 9,000 tanks by the end of May 2015.
Speaking at a workshop conducted by the Irrigation Department here on Friday, the minister said engineers were required to execute the works with transparency by coordinating with other departments so that the programme could become a model to the country. He asked the engineers not to compromise on the quality of work and keep the deadlines in mind at the same time.
The minister cautioned the engineers against irregularities and misuse of funds in the programme and asked them contact him through email if they had any problem in the execution of works. The engineers were also required to upload the details of progress in the work every day so that monitoring of the project at State level could become easy, he said.
He distributed laptops and survey equipment to the field engineers of the department and said that the tender process should be completed in one week and entering agreements with the successful bidders in the next one week so that works could be grounded at least by the last week of December. Restoration of over 9,000 tanks should be completed by May-end so that they were ready to impound water with the arrival of monsoon.
‘Inspection of works’
The Minister said that Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao and other Ministers would participate and inspect the works regularly over the next five months and the State should be in a position to store 265 TMC ft of water in over 45,000 minor irrigation tanks by the end of 2019. As the State was lagging behind on the irrigation front, restoration of tanks was one of the lasting solutions along with completion of major irrigation projects, he added.
Source: The Hindu