TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar told the House that irrigation projects in the State are rooted in corruption while declaring his plans to disband the Tillari Irrigation Corporation and finding ways of completing the project at the earliest.
He said too much time and money had gone into the Tillari Irrigation Project and also pointed out that there were instances of corruption in case of Selaulim canals as well.
Opposition leader Pratapsingh Rane on Tuesday took strong objections to the loss of time and money over the project and still falling short to cover the projected 14,000 acres of land under irrigation.
The government, through the Department of Water Resources disclosed that only 4875 hectares of land in North Goa district had been covered under the project so far. And Rs 1016 crore has been spent on the Tillari Irrigation project thus far.
Rane refuted data furnished in the House on areas covered by irrigation under the project and asked the minister for water resources Dayanand Mandrekar to do site inspection with him. While Mandrekar was forced to accept delay ~ close to 22 years ~ in completion of the project, sub-standard work on construction of canals was cited as the one of the reason for the delay.
“There seems to be much leakage of water rather than supply and utilization due to breaking of canals,” Parrikar said while intervening in the discussion. He opined that some new mechanism had to be devised for supplying this water through pipelines for drinking and irrigation purposes.
Earlier, Rane also asked to government to seek a report from village panchayats and people on utilization of water for irrigation and agriculture. He said, “presently, lot of land has been converted and water brought from Tillari will go waste.”
He also asked the WRD ministry to check out the canals in Quepem constructed by the erstwhile Portuguese which are still being used purposefully.
BJP MLA from Tivim Kiran Kandolkar demanded an inquiry into the delay in the completion of the Tillari irrigation project, while Pramod Sawant, BJP MLA from Sankhali asked for a House committee to look into the matter and submit a report.
