Mission Bhagiratha work bogged down by festivals

HYDERABAD: It's not shortage of funds or lethargy of officials but festivals have become major hurdles in the implementation of the Rs 40,000 crore Mission Bhagiratha, the flagship project of CM K Chandrasekhar Rao.Be it Sankranti, Holi, Ugadi, Ramzan, Bakrid, Vinayaka Chavithi, Onam, Dasara, Diwali or Christmas, execution of work is slowing down considerably as technicians and workers in large numbers take leave to go back to their native places to celebrate the festivals with their families.

Thousands of welders, jointers and other technicians from Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and AP, in addition to Te langana, are working on Mission Bhagiratha project. Besides these workers, there are thousands of labourers from other states have been hired by the contractors of the project.While technicians such as welders and joint forging skilled workers from Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha have been taking a minimum of a week to 10 days leave for festivals such as Holi and Diwali, and those from Andhra vanish from work place, albeit with a permission, from the contractor and officials to celebrate Sankranti and Ugadi with their dear ones back home. "Those from Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu go back to their native places for their festivals.

Then Muslims take leave for Ramzan and Bakrid festivals. Thankfully, not all the technicians are leaving for all the festivals all the time as those from Telangana mainly go for Bathukamma and Dasara following which at least some workers continue to work always on the project," said an official. When contacted, chief engineer, Rural Water Supply (Mission Bhagiratha project) Krupakar Reddy confirmed to TOI that the culture of celebrating festivals with families has in fact affected the pace of work. "If 50km of work is completed daily in a couple of districts during normal working days, this work comes down to to even 10km or even less than that during festivals," he said.

Mission Bhagiratha engineer-in-chief Surender Reddy said even the enrolment of contractors for intra-village work is in full swing. "We will be able to complete most of the work by year-end," he said.