Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu stood in a field near Gantavanipalle on Saturday and handed over a cheque for Rs 300 crore to families displaced by the Veligonda irrigation project.
The money is for rehabilitation and resettlement. Naidu said it reached 2,351 displaced people. He had come to inspect work on the project’s feeder canal and spent time talking with farmers and oustees.
Several of them were close to tears. “We are grateful to the Chief Minister for his commitment to completing the Veligonda Project, which has been our three-decade-old dream,” they told him, and asked for food processing units in Markapur to help their livelihoods.
Naidu called giving up land a “great sacrifice.” Many families, he said, had parted with land inherited from their ancestors. He argued the project would change the fortunes of four districts, where drought is common and high fluoride in the water causes health problems.
The numbers
The project is expected to cost Rs 10,580 crore. So far Rs 6,736 crore has been spent, and Rs 3,844 crore more has to be allocated. On resettlement, Rs 1,906 crore has gone out against a total need of Rs 1,932 crore.
“After the NDA government came to power in 2024, we spent Rs 759 crore on the project,” Naidu said. “Recently, Rs 905 crore was released for the R&R package. Today, we extended Rs 300 crore.”
He also spoke about the project’s history. It was first conceived under former chief minister NT Rama Rao, and people in Prakasam district were already asking for it when he visited in 1995. “Later, we laid the foundation for it,” he said.
Naidu said 7,222 people lost land in their native villages to the project. In his telling, the previous YSRCP government rehabilitated only 96 of them and filed false cases against people who asked for compensation. He said the Telugu Desam Party government finished most of the work between 2014 and 2019, and that its successor announced the project’s dedication in haste without completing the works or the resettlement programme. He also said the Centre had given Rs 980 crore.
Sources
- Veligonda Project near Andhra's Gantavanipalle oustees get Rs 300 crore under R&R package
- Veligonda Irrigation Project: CM Naidu disburses ₹300 crore under R&R package
