HYDERABAD: With Prime Minister Narendra Modi due to address the “Palamuru Praja Garjana” public meeting on Sunday, suspense is mounting among the people of Mahbubnagar region whether he will deliver any good news.
Adding to the suspense, BJP State President G Kishan Reddy had said on Saturday that the PM will be making some crucial announcements during his public meetings at Mahbubnagar on October 1 and at Nizamabad on October 3.
Of late, the most contentious issue in the Palamuru region has been the persistent demand by the State government to accord national project status to the Palamuru-Rangareddy Lift Irrigation Scheme (PRLIS). The Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MOEFCC) gave its approval to the project recently. Soon after, a trial run of one of the pumps of the project was inaugurated by Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on September 16. Following this, the BRS has intensified its demand for national status for the project.
In fact, some BRS ministers have been accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of not abiding by the promise made to the people of Palamuru region during his public meeting just before the 2014 elections that PRLIS will be made a national project.
Though BJP leaders have been dismissing the claim saying that Modi had only assured that the NDA would complete PRLIS, the expectations among the people are high. This has forced BJP leaders to ask the BRS government to show whether it has ever formally sought national project status for PRLIS. They earlier used to point out that the BRS government did not submit the detailed project report of the project to the Centre. Now that the DPR has been submitted for approval, the BJP is in a catch-22 situation.
Another long-pending project that needs to be modernised is the Rajolibanda Diversion Scheme (RDS), which was cited as a reason for a separate State of Telangana.
During his Praja Sangrama Yatra in Mahbubnagar district, former BJP state president Bandi Sanjay announced that the Centre had approved the proposal for modernising RDS and that the works would completed within six months.
A year has passed, with no headway in the works. There is a possibility that the PM could make some assurance regarding RDS.
In Nizamabad, the contentious issue has been the long-standing demand of the turmeric farmers from the region for the establishment of a Turmeric Board. In fact, it is widely believed that Dharmapuri Arvind won the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from Nizamabad only because he signed a bond swearing that he would get it done.
There have been reports from Delhi that the Centre has given its formal approval for the Turmeric Board and an order could be issued soon. If these reports are correct, the prime minister’s announcement in his Nizamabad public meeting on October 3 could be a mere formality.
Modi’s tour of Mahbubnagar today