SIRCILLA: A day after Chief Minister (CM) K Chandrasekhar Rao visited the Mid Manair Dam (MMD) in Rajanna Sircilla district, engineers of the dam expressed their happiness over the fruition of the project on Tuesday. The dam, part of the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project (KLIP), was completed in April 2018. It was filled to its full reservoir capacity of 25.8 thousand million cubic feet (tmcft) last week.
Chief engineer of MMD, M Srikantha Rao, told Express “MMD is the second largest dam in the north Telangana in terms of storage capacity after Sriram Sagar Project (SRSP). The hydraulic gates are one of the salient features of MMD.” The engineers said that MMD is vital for releasing water from the KLIP. It is a water hub to feed many projects such as the Lower Manair Dam, and proposed projects in Ananthagiri, Mallanna Sagar and Kondapochamma. MMD also feeds the Vemulawada temple tank. “Since 2017, the dam feed was gradually increased by 5 tmcft and 9 tmcft in 2018. The feed was increased by 15 tmcft, 20, 23 and 25 tmcft of water from KLIP inn 2019,” said Srikantha Rao. Around 2.32 lakh ayacuts (area served by irrigation projects) benefit from the MMD.“The project has aided in self-employment and several fishing communities. Soon, the tourism department will also develop it as a tourist destination,” said Srikantha Rao. CM Chandrashekar Rao had also announced that Sircilla Hills will be developed like Papi Ko n d a l u for t o u r i s m development.
Jeevan Reddy slams TRS Senior Congress leader and MLC T Jeevan Reddy alleged that the TRS government was negligent while executing the MMD Project and commissioned it three years late. Speaking to the media here on Tuesday, Jeevan Reddy said the project cost the State’s expenditure by `20,000 crore. He said the TRS government did not complete the small stretch of SRSP flood flow canal that would have directly filled the Lower Manair dam. The TRS, however, for their propaganda, designed the flood flow canal in such a way that it would first fill the MMD and later release water into the LMD, he said. Jeevan said that the MMD and KLIP were half completed during the Congress government in the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh. Under the guise of project re-design, the TRS government increased projects estimations, he alleged.