HYDERABAD: Accusing the previous BRS government of having “ordered the slowing down” of works on the Palamuru-Rangareddy Lift Irrigation Scheme (PRLIS), Irrigation Minister N Uttam Kumar Reddy said there would have been no problem had the previous government executed the project with an assured allocation of 90 tmcft of water before the new Terms of Reference (ToR) for the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal-II (KWDT-II) under the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act, 1956, came into force. He said the BRS was blaming the Congress government for its own failures.
The winter session of the Assembly, which commenced on Monday, is expected to take up the discussion on irrigation projects and the issue of Krishna and Godavari waters when it reconvenes on January 2.
“The Centre cited Section 3 of the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act, 1956, as the reason for allocating 45 tmcft of Krishna waters from the Srisailam dam for PRLIS, stating that it was subject to the KWDT decision, thereby making it sub judice.
The BRS was in power for 10 years from June 2014. What stopped it from completing the project during this period?” Uttam questioned during an infromal chat with reporters in his Assembly chamber.
He clarified that it was then that he had requested the Centre to grant clearance for the diversion of an additional 45 tmcft from the Godavari river. Uttam also said that the then BRS government issued GO Rt No 246, dated August 18, 2022, permitting the use of 45 tmcft based on the award of the Godavari Water Disputes Tribunal (GWDT).
“Our demand is 90 tmcft for PRLIS, and we never agreed to anything less than that,” he said, exuding confidence that the Congress government would complete the project with a 90 tmcft allocation during its current term. “The BRS thinks that repeating a lie makes people believe false propaganda,” he remarked.
BRS govt concealed original cost of PRLIS: Uttam
Terming the BRS claim of completing 90% of the PRLIS works as “false propaganda”, Uttam said the BRS government concealed the original project cost by declaring it at Rs 35,000 crore, against the actual estimated cost of Rs 75,000 crore. He alleged that the estimated Rs 30,000 crore required for the construction of distributary canals was omitted from the project estimates with ill-conceived intentions.
“They spent Rs 25,000 crore against the Rs 75,000 crore required and are now claiming that 90% of the project works are completed. Not even a single acre was irrigated, even as Rs 25,000 crore was spent during the BRS regime,” he said.
The minister also sought to know why the BRS government ignored PRLIS while completing the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme (KLIS) at a cost of nearly Rs 1 lakh crore.
“They ran one pump for about 30 minutes and claimed that they had inaugurated the project. In contrast, we have already completed the installation of 11 pumps in two years,” he said, asserting that the government had completed 67 lakh cubic metres of earthwork and seven lakh cubic metres of concrete work under PRLIS, rebutting KCR’s jibe that not even a single mortar pan of earth had been lifted.
Taking a swipe at Chandrasekhar Rao, the minister said the former chief minister never respected the PRLIS Detailed Project Report (DPR), finding fault with it and ordering its return, while completing the KLIS without a DPR.
“How did you spend `20,641 crore under PRLIS without a DPR?” he questioned, accusing the previous BRS government of achieving the dubious distinction of obtaining loans at higher interest rates.
Uttam faulted the BRS regime for not constructing the PRLIS at Jurala, which he said would have benefited the state by enabling the utilisation of around 30 tmcft of floodwaters without any formal allocation.
He added that there would have been no inter-state disputes had the project been constructed at Jurala, as it lies entirely within Telangana limits.