Minister for Irrigation and Civil Supplies N Uttam Kumar Reddy on Saturday announced that the State government would complete the J. Chokka Rao Devadula Lift Irrigation Scheme within the next two years, bringing permanent irrigation relief to large parts of the State. 

The Minister said the government has already taken a decision to allocate adequate funds, clear land acquisition hurdles and expedite pending works to ensure the scheme delivers water to farmers in the united Warangal district and also to Alair and Bhongir regions. 

“We will complete the Devadula project and provide irrigation facilities to 6 lakh acres in combined Warangal and Bhongir districts,” he said.

During his inspection of the Devadula project works in Dharmasagar mandal, accompanied by Revenue Minister Ponguleti Srinivasa Reddy and MLAs Kadiyam Srihari, Yashaswini Reddy and Nayini Rajender Reddy, the Minister came down heavily on the previous BRS government. 

He said the KCR-led regime had spent a staggering Rs 1.81 lakh crore on irrigation in the last ten years, but failed to create any significant ayacut. The Minister accused the BRS of inflating project estimates, mismanaging execution, and pushing the state into deep financial debt without delivering tangible benefits to the farming community. He said the Congress government was now correcting that historic blunder by fast-tracking all pending works and ensuring every rupee spent translates into water in the fields.

The Minister reviewed progress on the 49.06 km-long main tunnel under Devadula Phase-III Package-III and visited the Devannapet pump house, where officials informed that Pump-02 had already been commissioned and pumped water to Dharmasagar reservoir for 62 hours.

Pump-01 would be commissioned by May 31 and Pump-03 by July 31. To resolve end tunnel leakages and avoid interference with Mission Bhagiratha pipelines, 110 large steel pipes had been transported from the Manjeera project in Kamareddy, and insertion work is under way in all three rows, expected to be completed by the end of May. The project requires an additional Rs 3,312 crore for completion and aims to irrigate 5.57 lakh acres across nine drought-prone districts.