The State government has sanctioned ₹454.6 crore towards ex gratia and Rehabilitation and Resettlement (R&R) package to 10,231 Project Affected Families (PAFs) and Project Displaced Families (PDFs) of 22 villages under Phases 1, 2 and 3 of Gandikota Reservoir Project of the Galeru-Nagari Sujala Sravanthi scheme (GNSS) in YSR Kadapa district.
The Principal Secretary of the Water Resources Department, Shashi Bhushan Kumar, issued a government order (G.O. Rt. No. 312) on July 6 (Thursday), wherein he provided the details of the R&R package.
“This is a special project where the R&R was peaceful and executed without any legal issues. This will be a landmark project for Rayalaseema. It would supply water to four important reservoirs in the region,” Mr. Kumar told The Hindu.
In 2017, the government sanctioned ₹479.35 crore to 14 villages in Phase 1 of the project to evacuate people from the submerged villages to store 12 TMC of water in Gandikota. In 2018, it sanctioned another ₹146.29 crore, he added.
Later, in 2020, after the YSRCP came to power, the government sanctioned ₹145.94 crore for the PAFs and PDF of Kondapuram village of Kondapuram mandal in the district, keeping in view the urgency to store 27 TMC of water in kharif season that year, he added.
In the latest GO, it was stated, “Government sanctioned an amount of ₹295.62 crore for the 9,096 PDFs of 14 villages at ₹3.25 lakh per family as ex gratia to the Phase -1 villages on par with other villages of the project. The government is treating it as a special case and which shall not be quoted as a precedent for other Irrigation Projects”.
“It may be noted that Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has assured that ₹10 lakh will be paid to these 14 villages as compensation, on par with other villages of the project. In phase 1, ₹6.75 lakh was paid to each PDF, and now the government has proposed to pay ₹3.25 lakh per PDF as ex gratia on par with other villages,” he added.
“Further, an amount of ₹46.77 crore was allocated towards payment of R&R compensation to the rest of the PDFs of 14 villages under Phase-1, which was utilised for Kondapuram village as per GO Rt. No. 184, dated April 30, 2020,” he said.
Mr. Kumar said that with this final settlement of the package, the total number of PDFs is identified as 18,204, which includes the 10,231 PDFs from 22 villages.
He instructed the District Collector, Joint Collector, and Project Administrator of Kadapa district to ensure that the disbursement of the amount is done after thorough verification of the Aadhar card, Bank Accounts and other documents of the PDFs and that the records are duly maintained.
In the GO, he directed the District Collector and other concerned officials to ensure that the R&R to the PDFs and PAFs of the Gandikota Reservoir Project is fully completed, and that no further proposals or claims in this regard will be entertained by the government.
