HYDERABAD: Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka on Wednesday said that with just `42,000 crore, irrigation water could have been provided to 24 lakh acres from the Godavari river.
Instead, under the guise of “Godavari redesign”, the BRS government spent Rs 1.45 lakh crore but failed to provide irrigation to even a single additional acre.
During a PowerPoint presentation on the river waters issue, he said: “Had the BRS regime completed the Krishna river projects initiated by the earlier Congress government, the ongoing Krishna water dispute would not have arisen.”
The deputy chief minister said that Irrigation Minister Uttam Kumar Reddy clearly explained how the present government was making sincere efforts to protect Telangana’s rightful share in the Krishna and Godavari waters.
He recalled that in 2004, the then Congress government fast-tracked projects on the Krishna river, anticipating that future allocations would be made based on the status of ongoing projects. “If the BRS, after coming to power, had completed the irrigation projects launched by the Congress, Telangana would have fully utilised the Krishna waters today and there would have been no scope for present crisis,” he added.
Vikramarka said that by spending just `42,000 crore, Ichampally, Thummidihatti, Tupakulagudem, Devadula, Indira Sagar and Rajiv Sagar would have been completed by now. He alleged that BRS leaders looted over `1 lakh crore in the name of Kaleshwaram, spent public funds, but failed to deliver water.