HYDERABAD: Telangana Irrigation Minister N Uttam Kumar Reddy on Saturday tabled the white paper on Irrigation and gave a power point presentation on the damaged Medigadda barrage in the State Legislative Assembly.
He also said that leakages were observed even in the Annaram barrage and the State government requested the National Dam Safety Authority (NDSA) to visit the barrage.
However, the Irrigation Minister blamed the previous BRS government for the damages to Medigadda and Annaramm barrages, which were part of the massive Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme (KLIS). Through power point presentation he explained the findings of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), Vigilance report and NDSA report given on the Medigadda barrage.
In the white paper, the Minister said that the new works on irrigation projects could not be taken up, as the State government had to pay a whopping Rs 10,455 crore pending bills to contractors for the works already done. Uttam Kumar Reddy said that in the next five years, the government had to pay Rs 77,369 crore principal and interest amounts on the loans taken by the BRS government for irrigation projects.
The present government required Rs 1,75,143 crore to complete the ongoing irrigation projects and also to repay the loan amounts. With this, the expenditure to provide irrigation water per acre would come to around Rs 3.4 lakh. This amount may further increase, due to cost escalation in future, the Irrigation Minister said.
Less ayacut: Uttam Kumar Reddy said that after the formation of Telangana in 2014 to till date, the spending on the Irrigation sector was Rs 1.81 lakh crore. However, the new ayacut created was just 15.81 lakh acres.
Future plans: Uttam Kumar Reddy assured that the Congress government would allocate the required funds for the pending irrigation projects and complete irrigation projects in the Krishna river basin benefiting South Telangana. The government would not give any scope for corruption and take up works in a transparent manner, Uttam Kumar Reddy said while alleging that large-scale corruption took place in the construction of Irrigation projects in BRS rule.