HYDERABAD: Claiming that the Polavaram-Cauvery river linking project would prove beneficial only to Andhra Pradesh and not Telangana, BRS leader T Harish Rao on Sunday called for protests in Delhi opposing the proposal.
The former irrigation minister also said that the BRS would lead an all-party movement against the project. He demanded that a special session of the Assembly be convened to pass a resolution against the proposal.
Speaking to reporters here, the BRS leader said that the proposal to link Palamuru-Rangareddy Lift Irrigation Scheme with Nallamalasagar amounts to “taking away the rights of Telangana in Godavari waters”.
He alleged that Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy was a disciple of his Andhra Pradesh counterpart and was accepting every proposal of the neighbouring state.
As its Banakacherla and Nallamalasagar projects failed to take off, the AP government came up with another proposal — linking Polavaram-Cauvery to divert Godavari waters, he alleged.
Harish further said that the BRS government, during its tenure, had told the Union government that the interlinking of rivers should be taken up only after allocating 968 tmcft of Godavari water to Telangana.
He recalled that the then BRS government wanted the Centre to take up river interlinking either from Icchampally or from Sammakkasagar and from there to Nagarjunasagar.
“But the link project is now proposed to be taken up from Nallamalasagar (AP) to Grand Anicut (in TN). If this proposal is approved, then there would be no participation of Telangana in the river-linking project. If it is implemented, Telangana has to forego its share of 47 tmcft near Sammakkasagar,” he said.
“I had categorically told in a NWDA meeting in 2015 that Telangana needs 1,050 tmcft in Godavari. The then Karnataka irrigation minister and the present CM DK Shivakumar too agreed to take up the project from Icchampally in the 2018 NWDA meeting,” Harish recalled.