Veligonda Project: A 30-Year Wait Ends as Krishna Waters Finally Reach Drought-Hit Andhra Pradesh

Markapuram, August 31, 2026

Three decades after the first stone was laid, one of Andhra Pradesh's most ambitious irrigation dreams is finally becoming reality. Today, Phase-1 of the Veligonda Project — also known as the Poola Subbaiah Irrigation Project — was formally inaugurated at Markapuram, marking a defining moment for the drought-scarred lands of the erstwhile Prakasam district.

A Promise Made in 1996, Fulfilled in 2026

The story of Veligonda is as much about persistence as it is about engineering. Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu laid the foundation stone for the project on March 5, 1996, during his earlier tenure as Chief Minister of undivided Andhra Pradesh. Thirty years, several political transitions, and no shortage of technical hurdles later, Naidu returned to inaugurate the very project he had once set in motion — closing a remarkably long and personal chapter of public infrastructure history.

In the lead-up to the launch, Naidu described the effort in emotional terms, calling it the fulfilment of a promise made three decades ago and framing the moment as one that would bring relief to generations of farmers who had lived with chronic water scarcity.

What the Project Actually Does

At its core, Veligonda is a gravity-fed water conveyance system designed to solve a deceptively simple problem: how to bring Krishna River water from the Srisailam Reservoir to some of the most drought-prone, fluoride-affected terrain in the state — without depending heavily on energy-intensive pumping.

The engineering solution involves two tunnels bored through the Nallamala Hills, together stretching roughly 18.8 kilometres. Water drawn from the foreshore of the Srisailam Reservoir near Kollamvagu travels through these tunnels by gravity into the newly built Nallamala Sagar reservoir, from where it is distributed across the command area.

Digging those tunnels was no small feat. Much of the work ran through the Nagarjunsagar–Srisailam Tiger Reserve, requiring a double-shielded tunnel boring machine to minimize disruption to wildlife, along with drilling-and-blasting methods in the toughest rock stretches. Progress was slow and uneven for years — by 2018, the first tunnel was only about 13.6 km complete, and between 2019 and 2023 barely 2 km more was added. The final push over the past couple of years brought both tunnels to completion, clearing the way for today's launch.

What Gets Inaugurated Today

At the Markapuram ceremony, officials released 10.7 TMC (thousand million cubic feet) of water into the Nallamala Sagar reservoir — the visible, symbolic centerpiece of the launch.

Phase-1 of the project will now provide irrigation to approximately 1.19 lakh acres (around 119,000 acres) of farmland across the drought-hit tracts of the region.

This is, notably, only the first half of a much larger vision. Phase-2, still to come, is designed to extend irrigation to a further 3.28 lakh acres (roughly 328,000 acres) and bring drinking water to lakhs of people across the wider region. Taken together, the complete Veligonda Project aims to eventually irrigate around 4.47 lakh acres and supply drinking water to about 1.5 million people across 30 mandals spanning the Prakasam, Nellore, and Kadapa districts.

Why It Matters

The districts this project touches have long been synonymous with hardship — chronic drought, fluoride-contaminated groundwater, and an agricultural economy perpetually at the mercy of erratic rainfall. For farmers here, assured irrigation isn't a convenience; it's the difference between a viable livelihood and a precarious one.

Naidu has framed the project's goals in exactly those terms: irrigation for every farmer's field, employment opportunities for local youth, and a measure of security for families who have waited generations for this kind of intervention. Whether or not one agrees with every claim made at a ribbon-cutting, the underlying infrastructure — gravity-fed river water reaching historically parched land — is a tangible and significant change for the region.

The Road Ahead

Phase-1's completion is a milestone, not a finish line. The larger promise of Veligonda — full irrigation coverage and drinking water security for the entire command area — rests on Phase-2, which remains under construction. Given the project's history, expectations around timelines will likely be tempered by experience: this is a scheme that has, after all, taken thirty years to reach even its first major milestone.

Still, for the villages around Markapuram watching Krishna water flow into their fields for the first time, today's inauguration is a moment three decades in the making — and a reminder that even the slowest infrastructure promises can, eventually, arrive.