HYDERABAD: Irrigation Minister N Uttam Kumar Reddy on Saturday alleged that the previous BRS government had signed the death warrant of Telangana’s farmers and destroyed the irrigation sector. Accusing the BRS of committing historical blunders, he described the decisions taken by the previous regime on water issues as suicidal for the country’s youngest state.
During a PowerPoint presentation on river waters in the state Legislative Assembly, the minister highlighted how the BRS government’s actions had a catastrophic impact on Telangana’s water rights.
“The Palamuru-Rangareddy Lift Irrigation Scheme (PRLIS), originally designed to draw water from upstream of the Jurala project, was shifted to the Srisailam reservoir. Similarly, the Pranahita-Chevella project, meant to tap Godavari waters at Thummidihatti, was relocated to Medigadda. In both cases, the moves proved counterproductive. These shifts were intended to erase the imprint of the Congress government, which initiated these projects in undivided Andhra Pradesh. Instead, they left Telangana parched and impoverished,” Uttam alleged.
Delving deeper into what he called a betrayal, the minister said that Rs 1.83 lakh crore had been spent on irrigation projects during the BRS regime without delivering any tangible benefits to the state.
He said borrowings at exorbitant interest rates of 11 to 11.5% had saddled future generations with crushing debt. “Correcting the BRS government’s mistakes, we have successfully converted these into low-interest loans, saving the state from sliding into a full-blown financial crisis,” he added.
Alleging that the previous BRS government deliberately betrayed Mahbubnagar district, Uttam said the PRLIS could have yielded greater benefits with lower investment had the intake remained at Jurala, as originally planned.
Instead, project costs ballooned from an initial Rs 32,000 crore to Rs 55,000 crore by 2022, when the Detailed Project Report (DPR) was submitted to the Central Water Commission (CWC), due to the relocation of the intake. “Completion would push the expenditure to Rs 80,000–Rs 84,000 crore,” he said.
Lambasting the BRS’s claim that 90% of the project had been completed with just 25–30% funding, he termed it outright cheating and a betrayal of the people of southern Telangana. He pointed out that not a single acre had received irrigation despite massive expenditure, and added that land acquisition for over 39,000 acres was still pending.
He further said the BRS sought to scale up daily drawal for the Kaleshwaram project from two tmcft to three tmcft, while downsizing PRLIS from 1.5 tmcft to one tmcft after 2018.
“The BRS failed to keep its promise of completing the PRLIS by 2018, leaving behind pending bills worth Rs 40,000 crore — including Rs 10,000 crore for irrigation alone — when it was ousted in December 2023,” he said.
Turning to the Krishna river water dispute, the minister unleashed sharp criticism of the BRS for what he termed a “meek surrender”. He alleged that the previous government conceded 512 tmcft to Andhra Pradesh, leaving Telangana with a paltry 299 tmcft in the 2016 Apex Council allocation, which was endorsed in 2020 to continue until the Brijesh Kumar Tribunal (KWDT-II) finalised the shares.
Demanding project-specific allocations and operational protocols, he said Andhra Pradesh’s expansions — the Rayalaseema Lift Scheme from 3–4 tmcft a day and the Pothireddypadu Head Regulator from 4 tmcft to 13 tmcft a day — had cost Telangana dearly. He held the BRS squarely responsible for the alleged water loot by Andhra Pradesh year after year over the past decade, blaming its “cosy ties” with the previous YSRCP government. Multiple meetings between former chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao and his AP counterpart Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy, he said, resulted in unwarranted concessions to the neighbouring state.
The minister also said the previous BRS government failed to install telemetry instruments at all the required points, aggravating the crisis.
Despite all odds, he said, Telangana had achieved record crop yields and record procurement of paddy and other crops over the past two years.