Bhubaneswar: With a view to expanding irrigation coverage to additional three lakh hectares of land, the Odisha government has planned to invest Rs 12,000 crore during the next three years on major and medium projects, said principal secretary, water resources department, Suresh Mohapatra. Briefing newsmen here Mohapatra said that the thrust is now to complete the ongoing 12 medium and eight major irrigation projects and so far Rs 7,000 crore had been spent on the projects. However, it requires completion of the canal systems, spillways, strengthening of embankments, acquisition of land, forest clearance etc for the commissioning of the irrigation projects, he said. He said that in order to expedite the works, the state government has decided to engage 31 experts in the field of revenue matters, irrigation and environment, mostly retired engineers. So far 12 engineers have been engaged. Replying to a question on the controversial Polavaram irrigation project, Mohapatra said that the state government had represented through the High Level Expert Committee headed by engineer-in-chief Harish Behera which opposed the project and submitted a memorandum to the Gopal Krishna Committee formed by the Supreme Court during its two-day visit on May 23 and 24. The committee also opposed the revised design of the Polavaram project with increased height which would submerge large areas of Odisha. The committee had drawn the attention of the Gopal Krishna Committee on how the project would create large scale submergence in Odisha and appraised it of how the Andhra Pradesh government chose to ignore the public hearing and verdict of the gram sabha in the tribal dominated Malkangiri district to go ahead with the plan. The Harish Behera committee also requested the Gopal Krishana Committee to visit the Odisha side that is likely to be affected due to the Polavaram, he said. Meanwhile, chief minister on Saturday reviewed the progress of the ongoing major irrigation projects such as Rengali right and left canal, Subarna Rekha, Upper Indravati extension project, Indra, Kanpur, Suktel and Anandapur barrage project at a high level meeting at the State Secretariat here on Saturday. The chief minister asked the water resources separtment authorities to expedite the completion of the projects and complete the right main canal and left canal of lower Indravati project by 2012 and 2013 respectively to provide irrigation to 29,000 hectares of land. Besides, he also asked the department authorities to complete the dam and spillway works of the Kanpur irrigation project during the targeted period of 2015. The meeting decided to expedite the process of land acquisition for the implementation of the major irrigation projects. The meeting revealed that in the next three years, an estimated 1.40 lakh hectares of land would be covered under irrigation through the Upper Indravati extension project, Lower Indravati, Rengali left and right canal, Titilagarh Manjor project, Baghalati and Rukura irrigation projects.