HYDERABAD: The Telangana state government will release a white paper on the irrigation projects in the Assembly in a day or two to lay bare the facts about the much-publicised Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme (KLIS), said Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy.
Speaking in the Assembly on Tuesday before leaving for the Medigadda project along with ministers and MLAs, he said that Irrigation Minister N Uttam Kumar Reddy will release the white paper.
“We have invited all members of BRS, BJP, MIM, and CPI to visit the barrage to study first-hand what has gone wrong with ‘this man-made marvel’ and who should be blamed for the damage. I appeal to BRS president and former chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao to join us in visiting Medigadda and explaining ‘the wonder his government has created’ at the expense of public money. KCR should let us know how he constructed a Taj Mahal-like marvel as the people of Telangana have a right to know the facts. We must find out what has gone wrong and who should be blamed for it,” he said.
“If KCR finds it arduous to travel by bus, we have arranged a helicopter from the Begumpet airport to the barrage,” Revanth said, lacing his words with sarcasm.
Revanth said that when the piers of Medigadda barrage sank due to sand erosion on October 21 last year, the BRS government deployed a huge police force similar to the one at the Wagah Border to prevent people from visiting the barrage.
Files missing
The CM alleged that some files relating to the project were missing after the Congress came to power.
The Vigilance and Enforcement department was asked to conduct an inquiry into missing files and also the irregularities in the construction of Medigadda, Sundilla and Annaram barrages. A preliminary report on various aspects, including defects in the design and construction of the barrages and negligence, was submitted to the state government. Even the National Dam Safety Authority after inspection clearly stated that there were faults in the construction of Medigadda and suggested that the barrage needs to be reconstructed as mere repairs would not help,” he explained.
It is the responsibility of every member of the legislature to know what has caused the damage. There is a necessity to discuss the vigilance report in the Assembly,” he added.
The chief minister said that the previous government had projected Kaleshwaram as the world’s man-made wonder. “The KCR government went to town about its achievement even at Times Square in New York. The Discovery Channel ran stories on it,” he said.
Originally named the Pranahita-Chevella project, it was designed to irrigate 14 lakh acres at a cost of Rs 38,500 crore, and tenders were called in 2008 by the then Congress government headed by Y S Rajasekhara Reddy in undivided Andhra Pradesh. After the formation of Telangana state, the BRS government re-designed the project with Medigadda, Annaram, and Sundilla barrages and revised the project estimates’ cost to Rs 1.45 lakh crore, the CM explained.
IT Minister D Sridhar Babu said that major projects built 40-50 years ago during the Congress regime in undivided AP were still intact. In January, a team of ministers visited Medigadda to gather details of the damage from officials concerned. Even the vigilance report showed that the previous government misused public money. He alleged that due to corruption, negligence, defective design, and construction, the barrage was reduced to rubble.
He said that the BJP MLAs boycotted visiting the barrage though Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself claimed that Kaleshwaram project had turned into an ATM for the BRS. It was strange that they were not keen on checking the facts at the ground level.
Assembly adjourned
Meanwhile, the State Assembly was adjourned abruptly after the chief minister mentioned about the officials’ visit to Medigadda.
Earlier, Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka moved the annual financial statement seeking grant for meeting the essential expenditure for the first four months of financial year 2024-25 and supplementary estimates of expenditure for financial year 2023-24. As per agenda, the House was supposed to discuss the annual financial statement.