Delegation to meet Governor over Lower Painganga project

A delegation of those affected due to the incompletion of Lower Painganga Irrigation project in Yavatmal district of Maharashtra will meet the Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao here tomorrow.
People have waited for over 40 years for this project to be built and now they are pinning hopes on the Governor to push it, former social justice minister Shivajirao Moghe said.
A joint delegation of farmers from Vidarbha and Telangana will meet the Maharashtra Governor at the Raj Bhavan here, the Congress leader said in a release.
The proposed dam at Khadka village in Arni tehsil of Yavatmal has the potential to irrigate over five lakh acres of land, 88 per cent of which is in Vidarbha and 12 per cent in Adilabad district of the neighbouring Telangana state.

Being an inter-state project, it can qualify as a national project and get 90 per cent funding from the Centre, he said.
"As a custodian of statutory development board of the backward Vidarbha region, the Governor has special powers to remove regional imbalance. Hope he takes up our plea," Moghe said.
Administrative approval for the project was granted on June 26, 1997, at an estimated cost of Rs 1,402 crore. In 2009, it was revised to Rs 10,429 crore and at today's rates it is expected to be scaled up to Rs 17,000 crore, he said.