"As per the commitment, a provision of Rs 700 crore should have been made in the current year's budget. The budget statement clearly shows that no such provision has been made. If alternate provisions are not made, then it will have an adverse impact on the crisis-ridden KVDC," a senior official of the Irrigation Department told The Indian Express.

When the government set up the KVDC in February 1996 to completely utilise its share of 560 million cubic feet water by the end of 2000, it had chalked out a Rs 7,100 crore comprehensive action plan to complete 871 irrigation projects in Pune, Satara, Sangli, Kolhapur, Solapur, Ahmednagar, Osmanabad and Beed districts.

The alliance government on its part says that through the Bachhawat award declaringwater share of Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh in 1976, the erstwhile Congress Government failed to chalk out a strategy to utilise water. As a result, there was no alternative except to reorganise the funds and complete the ongoing projects in a time-bound period.

Accordingly, the alliance government prepared a Rs 7,100 crore plan to complete the ensuing and new projects before the deadline set up by the Bachhawat Commission. The Manohar Joshi Government declared that, out of the Rs 7100 crore, Rs 3,500 crore would be provided by the government in a phased manner through budgetary support, while the remaining amount of Rs 3,600 crore would be generated through public and private placement bonds.

The alliance government had assured that it would provide Rs 189.89 crore in 1996-97 and Rs 700 crore every year from 1997-98 to 2001. As per the promise, it did make a budgetary provision of Rs 189.89 crore in the first year and Rs 700 crore in the second year, but failed to make a budgetary provisionof Rs 700 crore in the budget presented by Finance Minister Mahadev Shivankar on March 24. Incidentally, Shivankar, himself was the Irrigation Minister when the strategy to implement the action plan was finalised.

Following an agitation against him by anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare, for a brief period, Shivankar was a Minister without a portfolio. After he was exonerated by the Justice Puranik Committee, he was shifted to the Finance Department and the Irrigation portfolio was allotted to Eknath Khadse.

In view of the serious allegations, Chief Minister Manohar Joshi had personally visited more than a dozen sites to see for himself the status of these projects. Soon after Joshi's visit, senior Congress leader R R Patil levelled charges of corruption against the government, particularly the Irrigation department, that huge transactions had taken place before awarding major contracts. Soon after Patil's charge, chief engineer Ashok Patil was caught red-handed by the Anti-Corruption Bureau whileaccepting a bribe of Rs one lakh from a contractor.

"Certainly, it will be a difficult task for Khadse to face the Assembly, particularly when it debates the demands of the Irrigation department, since no budgetary provision has been made in the current year," the official said.

Elaborating on the details, the official said out of the 871 projects, 33 are major, 71 medium and 767 small.

So far as the current status of these projects is concerned, the official said out of 506 -- 8 big, 34 medium and 464 small are complete, 17 major, 26 medium and 153 small are in different stages of completion, while eight major, 11 medium and 150 small are under survey.