HYDERABAD: Congress Legislature Party leader Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka on Friday described Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme (KLIS) as a cash cow for TRS honchos whenever they needed money.
Speaking to media persons here, he said that the motive of the TRS leaders behind taking up the project was to line their pockets rather than building an asset that would help farmers in the State.
Vikramarka said when the project was conceived during Congress regime, its estimate was only Rs 38,000 crore and after the advent of the TRS government, in the name of changing of design, the estimate had been jacked up to nearly Rs 1 lakh crore.
He said the original project, had it been commissioned, would have to provide irrigation facility to 14 lakh acres but now even after spending up to Rs 50,000 crore, is not in a position to provide water even for one acre.
Rank corruption
As there was rank corruption in the execution of Kaleshwaram project, the TRS leaders were trying to gag the opposition through admitting Congress MLAS into their ranks.
For the inauguration of the first phase of the project, Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, without inviting stakeholders, was extending a warm welcome to his Maharashtra and AP counterparts.
The Telangana chief minister did not keep his word of providing the detailed project report of Kaleshwaram to all the MLAs.
The CLP leader cautioned AP Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy to bear in mind that Chandrasekhar Rao had changed the designs of Pranahita Chevella, which was the dream project of late YS Rajasekhar Reddy by contending that its designs were wrong.
“If Jagan Mohan Reddy attends the inaugural ceremony, he would be endorsing the argument that his father’s designs were wrong,” Vikramarka said.
The CLP leader also asked Congress Legislator P Sabita Indra Reddy, who had recently joined the TRS, on whether the pink party had given her any assurance to that Kaleshwaram project would provide water to Chevella for which she had even taken out a padayatra in the past.