The Andhra Pradesh government will celebrate 60 years of construction of the Prakasam barrage at Durga Ghat on December 29, according to Water Resources Minister Devineni Umamaheswara Rao.
Speaking to mediapersons after garlanding the statue of Tanguturi Prakasam at the barrage, Mr. Rao said the Krishna delta would not have been fertile had Sir Arthur Cotton not conceived the idea of building a barrage on the River Krishna and got his vision translated into a reality in 1957, three years after the foundation stone was laid.
The barrage had since been irrigating nearly 13.10 lakh acres in four districts – West Godavari, Krishna, Guntur and Prakasam – through a vast network of 13 canals.
It was also supplying water to Dr. Narla Tatarao Thermal Power Station since 1979, he said.
Survey under way
Mr. Rao said Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu had given the green signal for the construction of another barrage at Vaikunthapuram, for which a LIDAR survey is being done by Water and Power Consultancy Services Limited.
This new structure would reduce the load on Prakasam barrage and facilitate additional storage of the river water. Mayor Koneru Sridhar, Water Resources Department Apex Council member Alla Gopalakrishna and Krishna Eastern Project Committee Chairman G. Siva Ramakrishna were among those present.
