HYDERABAD: Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy on Saturday asked BRS leaders to tender an apology for the mistakes that occurred in the construction of the Medigadda barrage and give confessional statements when the state government-ordered probe by a retired judge gets underway.
Taking part in the debate on the white paper on irrigation in the State Legislative Assembly on Saturday, Revanth said: “Kaleshwaram was not a boon for the state. It was now a blemish on the state. Kaleshwaram varapradayanini kaadu...Telangana samajaniki kalankam”.
The chief minister said that even the five-member committee of retired engineers constituted by the then BRS government too advised the administration not to construct the barrage at Medigadda.
Reading out the 14-page report of the retired engineers submitted in 2015, Revanth quoted the report as saying: “It’s always better for the government to accept the concept of the existing Pranahita-Chevella scheme near Tummadihatti village in Adilabad district and explore ways and means to make it feasible”.
He quoted the report as saying that the proposal of the construction of a barrage on the Godavari near Medigadda village and lifting 160 tmcft of water to the Mid-Manair reservoir was not desirable due to its prohibitive cost and time consumption. The BRS government did not take this report into consideration and went ahead with constructing the barrage at Medigadda, Revanth said.
Objecting to the objections of former Irrigation minister T Harish Rao, the chief minister said that instead of levelling counter allegations against the present government, the BRS leader should have accepted the mistakes committed by his party. “But without any shame, Harish Rao is trying to hush up their mistakes,” Revanth said.
“Though the BRS termed Kaleshwaram as a boon, the project has now become a blemish on Telangana,” he said.
Revanth also wondered why former minister Sabitha Indra Reddy was silent when the BRS shelved the Pranahita-Chevella project and neglected Rangareddy district. He said that his government would think about how to repair Medigadda barrage.