Crores wasted on unplanned irrigation schemes

Nitesh Sangral
JAMMU, July 9: The lift irrigation schemes that irrigate 22.83 thousand hectare of cultivable land in the state have been executed in an unplanned manner and are lingering on for more than 20 years in many cases. The irrigation potential created has not been fully utilised, adversely affecting the contribution of the lift irrigation schemes. The construction work and maintenance of these schemes is vested with the state Irrigation and Flood Control Department. As per official records, the schemes irrigate 7 per cent of the cultivable land in the state. Scrutiny revealed that the department concerned did not frame any perspective plan with regard to the construction work under these schemes. Various schemes were taken up without setting priorities and as a result a number of schemes remained incomplete despite being under construction for the past between 20 and 26 years. For providing irrigation facilities to 32 villages with a command cultivable area of 12,000 acres, the executive engineer, Irrigation Department, Akhnoor, had incurred (March 2004) an expenditure of Rs 44.17 lakh on survey work for the construction of the lift irrigation scheme at Ambran and this included Rs 38 lakh paid (June 2003) to a firm, WAPCOS, for the preparation of a detailed project report. The official records state that out of 30 schemes under execution, seven schemes that were due for completion between 2000-01 and 2006-07 had not been completed due to dispute over land, link alignment, insufficient water sources,non-completion of civil works, non-procurement, installation of machinery and inadequate funds. There were 42 schemes under execution during 2003-08, and out of which only 12 were completed during the period. Of the remaining 30 schemes, 19 suffered on account of frequent change of design and alignment, execution of works at a slow pace, incorporation of additional items or work not envisaged in the original estimates, non-provision of funds, which resulted in time and cost overrun.