Thirty years after the foundation stone, Veligonda Phase-I finally opens

Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on Monday, 31 August 2026, inaugurated Phase-I of the Poola Subbaiah Veligonda irrigation project at Gantavanipalli in Dornala mandal of Markapuram district. He offered Jala Harathi and Sashtanga Namaskaram to Krishna water drawn from the Srisailam foreshore, unveiled a plaque, and opened the gates with farmers and displaced families present. The event was branded Veligonda Jalasirulu-Abhivruddhiki Rekkalu.

The political memory of the project is as long as its tunnels. The foundation stone was laid on 5 March 1996 when Naidu was chief minister of undivided Andhra Pradesh. At Gantavanipalli he said he had kept a thirty-year promise and was working for the next generation, not the next elections. Whether voters accept that framing is a separate question; the ceremonial fact is that Phase-I water was formally dedicated on Monday.

The Phase-I engineering package is specific. About 10.70 TMC is to be diverted to Nallamala Sagar. Irrigation cover is cited at about 1.19 lakh acres, with drinking water for about 4 lakh people. Twin tunnels run 18.8 kilometres, with feeder canals of 21.8 kilometres, on a gravity path from the Srisailam foreshore and Kollam Vagu. The wider project ambition stretches further: 4.47 lakh acres across 30 mandals in Markapuram, Prakasam, SPSR Nellore and Kadapa (YSR) districts, and drinking water for about 23 lakh people, including fluoride-hit areas, with a Jal Jeevan Mission grid source role for Markapuram and Prakasam noted in public remarks by Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan.

Money on the public record is equally large. The total estimated cost is ₹10,200 crore. About ₹7,983 crore has been spent so far on Phase-I, with roughly ₹1,900 crore of works still remaining. Phase-II is targeted for 2028. On rehabilitation, the government said ₹768 crore was paid within 48 days to 6,206 displaced families, with another ₹169 crore in R&R support. The cut-off date was extended so that eligible eighteen-year-olds receive ₹2 lakh each. Naidu paid tribute to eleven villages that lost land and honoured Vilasini and Sunanda, daughters of the late legislator Poola Subbaiah after whom the project is named.

Beyond Veligonda, Naidu restated a broader irrigation calendar: complete 36 irrigation projects in three years, finish Polavaram by March 2027, and pursue river interlinking across the Godavari, Krishna, Penna and Cauvery. Ministers present included N. Ramanaidu, Anam Ramanarayana Reddy, Gottipati Ravi Kumar, D.B.V. Swamy, Kandula Durgesh and Pardha Saradhi, with Bharatiya Janata Party state chief P.V.N. Madhav also listed. One report named Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Ltd as the contractor.

For Rayalaseema and the Nallamala fringe, Monday was less about slogan than about whether water arrives on schedule into fields and tanks. Phase-I is not the full dream of 4.47 lakh acres; it is the first operational slice after three decades. The political credit fight is recorded in a separate cutting. This one stays with the inauguration, the TMC and acreage numbers, the spend, the R&R payments, and the thirty-year arc from the 1996 stone to the 2026 gates.