HYDERABAD: Holding Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao responsible for the sinking of a pillar of Medigadda Lakshmi barrage, BJP MLA and the party’s State election management committee chairman Eatala Rajender on Tuesday demanded the resignation of the former. He also demanded that the State government form an expert committee to study what went wrong, and to release a white paper on everything starting from the tender process to execution of the project.
Also demanding a CBI inquiry into the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme (KLIS), the BJP leader also sought a review of the entire system of the project including all its components, and also the disaster management master plan, which he said, was not prepared.
Addressing the media at the BJP party office in Nampally on Monday, Eatala accused the State government of building the pillars on sand without conducting the testing of soil at the barrage site, of not laying the pile foundation on which the pillars were supposed to be built, and not building cement concrete ground-link between the pillars.
He alleged that neither was aerial survey of the project, nor dam safety analysis done and nor was expert opinion taken for the selection of the site. Claiming that water has been seeping from the barrage since it was built, he said that even Kondapochamma Sagar reservoir built under the project with a capacity of 16 tmcft, was not being filled more than 4-5 tmcft because of the issue of seepage in the reservoir.
“Since 2019, 172 tmcft water has been lifted from KLIS at a cost of Rs 9,000 crore . Experts say that the cost of lifting the water is more than the total value of the crops produced under its ayacut. The State government owes Rs 6,000 crore to Transco and Rs 3,500 crore is payable as the fixed charge every year, even if the water is not lifted,” he said.
Noting that action should have been taken against those responsible for the submersion and destruction of Kannepalli pump house under KLIS last year, he said that even in the Lakshmi barrage case, the contractor stated that he had done the work as per the designs given by the State government. “The State government has been imposing 144 Section every time some damage is happening to the project. Is this good for democracy?” he wondered, calling the chief minister the first accused for the failure of the project.
Terming KLIS the “world’s greatest engineering blunder,” former MP Konda Vishweshwar Reddy said that there were flaws in the design of every component of the project including the pump houses, reservoirs and barrages.
“The entire system of the project has issues with hydrology, meteorology, geology, civil and electrical engineering. There is a difference in what is in the detailed project report (DPR) and how it has been executed. Every bank from where loans have been sought, have been given a different DPR,” Vishweshwar Reddy alleged, claiming that experts found that Rs 1 to Rs 1.5 lakh will be the expenditure on power to lift the water per acre.
Questioning how IT and Industries Minister KT Rama Rao, who isn’t a civil engineer, could give a presentation on KLIS to the American Society of Civil Engineers, he wondered what the organisation would have to say about the project now.
Ramachandru Tejavath, special representative to the State government, pointed out that even in case of Palamuru-Rangareddy Lift Irrigation Scheme, no physical survey was done, and the project’s cost estimation and the date of foundation stone laying was all decided in just 11 hours.
Remembering the dam disaster of 1979 in Morbi town in Gujarat which had claimed 500 lives back then, he said that the KLIS being a national property, the State government has the responsibility to inform the people about what was happening.