Do you know prakasam barrage History ? saved Famine from turning into a flood.!

Now we are seeing bezwada which is reeling under floods. We are also talking about the Prakasam Barrage, which saved this calamity from turning into a flood. But have you ever heard that the drought in the same area that once caused the lack of water for agriculture has killed lakhs of people? Did you know that prakasam barrage was formed between Vijayawada and Guntur because of that?

The drought that frightened the British government was that during the
British rule, the water that had come before the construction of the barrage on Krishnamma would have gone into the sea as if it had come. There was no possibility of storage. Vijayawada and Guntur are already very large towns historically and administratively. At such a time, in the years 1832-33, there was a famine in Vijayawada and Guntur regions. The previous year, in 1831, heavy rains had destroyed the crops of the peasants. And then a year came a fierce storm that hit agriculture.

Farmers could not find seeds as the crop was destroyed for two years in a row. Moreover, the British's collection of taxes emptied the people of some of the money they had. Neither the crops nor the money went away and suddenly there was a terrible drought in the region, especially in the areas around Guntur. The drought was so severe that people did not have food to eat, the body was depressed, the bones withered and the blisters were visible. That is to say, in some parts of Africa, the situation that we are seeing now was there then. That's why it was later named dokkala drought.

According to records, 2 lakh people have died in Guntur alone due to the drought in Guntur alone. That's why this drought is also known as Guntur drought. The then population of the area was 5 lakhs. Two lakh of them have died due to lack of food due to drought. Even though there is water in krishna river, it cannot be used.
During the drought, people did not have food or ate whatever they could find. They also tried to save their lives by eating the fruits of dangerous thorny trees. The impact of this drought has spread not only to Vijayawada guntur but also to Chennai. Everywhere on the Vijayawada-Chennai highway, there are mounds of dead bodies.
For the next 20 years, the ill-effects of this drought fell not only on the two towns but also on the Andhra region. It is clear in the British writings that since all these were in the then Madras Presidency, its revenue was damaged by more than half.

The result of drought -the construction of the barrage.
The British government felt that storage of water was the only way to prevent such a danger from occurring again with this drought. It was decided to build a barrage between Guntur and Vijayawada. The barrage was built just above the existing Prakasam barrage with the cotton instructions that had already built a barrage on the Godavari and made the area fertile. It started in 1853 with a length of 1132 meters at a cost of Rs 1.49 crore and was completed in 1854. The construction of the project was overseen by Cotton's disciple Major Charles Orr. Irrigation water from the barrage through 10 major canals reached the agricultural lands. The project, which served for 100 years, was washed away by the floods of 1952.

Prakasam Barrage, which became available in 1957, was washed away by the British and in 1954, the then newly formed Andhra State Government launched a new project.
Built between Vijayawada and Sitanagaram, the barrage started on December 24, 1957. This project is a little longer than the old project. Its length is 1223 meters. With 70 gates, the project will irrigate 13.08 lakh acres. The construction of the project cost Rs 2.78 crore.

It is named as Prakasam Barrage in honor of Tanguturi Prakasam Pantulu, the first Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh. Since then, Vijayawada has been protecting the agricultural lands of krishna guntur combined districts from the drought from the heavy floods.