Ghungshi Barrage Project

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Thousands of residents of 22 villages in Murtizapur tehsil in Akola district are waiting endlessly for over seven years to get water. They sacrificed their fertile farms, which was their livelihood, for Ghungshi barrage with a dream of getting irrigation facilities only to find it's a mirage.
Like all other irrigation projects in Vidarbha, this one too is a victim of cost escalations, government apathy, and unholy nexus between the government officials, contractors and politicians. As a result, the cost of the barrage, coming up on Purna river, jumped to Rs389.91 crore from the original estimate of Rs170.15 crore all these years.
The project, which received administrative sanction on December 23, 2008, was planned to irrigate 6,343 hectares land in these 22 villages. The project was to be completed in 2016, but till date, it failed to bring even an inch of land under irrigation. On other hand, Vidarbha Irrigation Development Council (VIDC) has already incurred an expenditure of Rs277.30 crore on the project, thus wasting precious public money without benefiting even a single farmer.
A visit to the project, as part of 'Sinchan Shodh Yatra' jointly organized by NGOs Jan Manch, Loknayak Bapuji Aney Smarak Samiti, Swadeshi Jagran Manch, Vidarbha Economic Development (VED) Council and others on Sunday, revealed the grim scenario.
VIDC's executive engineer Sunil Rathi attributed the delay to the stoppage of work for two years, from 2012 to 2014, as the government failed to release funds. The actual construction commenced in October 2009. He also admitted that since the barrage site falls under saline water belt and black cotton soil, the project cost further escalated, as they need to dig deeper below 250 feet for laying the foundation. He, however, assured that the project would be completed within three years, if government releases the funds in time and sanctions the revised estimates.
The project is marred with common problems like delay in land acquisition, construction of pipelines and failure to properly compensate the farmers, whose lands were acquired. Earlier, there were plans to lay canals for distributing water with the length of the main canal 15.18 kms while its distributaries 74 kms. Total land required for the project was 400 hectares for the barrage, 10 floodgates, canals and water storage. Of this, 241.31 hectares land was acquired while process is underway for the remaining. About 171 hectares land was directly purchased while the remaining was acquired under the Land Acquisition Act.
The executive engineer informed that they were yet to send the proposal for laying of pipelines that would save land acquisition cost. "We've prepared a proposal costing Rs180 crore. It would be rushed to the government once scrutiny is completed. However, the government is also coming out with a policy wherein if the cost of laying pipeline is less than that of laying canals, such proposal would immediately get approval. There is also a mention of saline tract where special concessions would be granted for pipelines. The policy is at drafting stage,"