Veligonda irrigation project to be completed soon, minister says on district formation day

At the 57th formation day of Prakasam district in February 2026, minister Dola Sri Bala Veeranjaneya Swamy stated that the Pulasubbaiah Veligonda irrigation project is in its final stages and water release is imminent. The New Indian Express carried the statement. The Veligonda project has been on the books for decades as the structural answer to drought across Prakasam's western mandals. Once operational, it pipes water from the Krishna basin to historically rain-starved interior tracts — many of which sit upstream and along the Nagarjuna Sagar Right Canal that already passes through Kurichedu. For agricultural landowners and anyone underwriting farmland in the Kurichedu–Darsi–Markapur belt, this matters more than any single industrial announcement. Water availability resets crop choice, double-cropping economics, and ultimately land value. Treat the minister's timeline ("soon") with the caution it deserves — the project has been declared "near completion" before — but track formal commissioning notices closely.