While appreciating the Telangana government for comprehensively discussing the Srisailam Left Bank Canal (SLBC) project, water rights activists, farmers and fluorosis victims, however, maintained that the government should be practical in its approach.

They further said the government should work in a time-bound manner to complete the project that would help arrest the impact of high content of fluoride in groundwater.

Speaking to The Hindu, Water Rights activist Dusharala Satyanarayana, who founded Jala Sadhana Samithi some three decades ago to fight for the supply of irrigation and drinking water to fluoride-hit Nalgonda, said that the State government must complete the project within three years to put an end to the decades-old fluoride problem.

“We have seen the Chief Minister of Telangana, K. Chandrasekhar Rao, accepting each and every proposal taken to him, but he must keep his word,” Mr. Satyanarayana said.

He pointed out that successive pro-Andhra governments had sanctioned more funds to Veligonda project that was conceived much after SLBC and supplies water to Prakasam, Kadapa and Nellore.

Since the supply of surface water is the only answer to minimising the impact of fluoride, Fluorosis Vimukthi Porata Samithi (FVPS) founder, Kanchukatla Subhash, said the Telangana government must complete the project on a war-footing by allocating all funds required with immediate effect.

The farmers’ wing of the Left parties also asked the government to complete the project within three years. They said the project would not only bring 3.5 lakh acres under cultivation but would also supply drinking water to a majority of habitations in Deverakonda and Munuguode Assembly constituencies.

Print PDF