HYDERABAD:Gone are the days when projects were christened after national leaders and visionaries. In a bid to invoke the blessings of gods to ward off evil and bring prosperity, the government of Telangana has decided to name irrigation projects after gods.
The TRS Government has taken up an ambitious project to irrigate all villages across the state and thereby strengthen the farming sector. It seems the authorities believe that gods will shower bountiful blessings if the projects are named after them and help ward off drought-like situations.
For example, the government, which has almost shelved the Pranahitha-Chevella project, is taking up a new lift irrigation project in its place at Medigadda in Karimnagar, which is named after Kaleshwaram, a famous temple at Mahadevpur village in Karimnagar district. It is learnt that the officials have suggested the names of six gods and temples to Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao to name Palamuru-Rangareddy project.
As part of the proposed Palamuru-Rangareddy lift irrigation project, six major barrages with a height of 35 to 60 metres have been proposed. All these barrages will come up at different places between Palamuru and Rangareddy district. The barrage planned at Narlapur will be named Anjanagiri. Yedula will be known as Veeranjaneya, Vattem will be called Venkatadri, Karivena is to be named after Kurumurthy Raya, Uddandapur will be called Uddandapur and Laxmidevipalle will be known as Laxmidevipalle. Sri Lakshmi Alamelu Manga Sametha Sri Venkateswara Swamy Temple is located in Anjanagiri in Mahbubnagar. In the same district, Vattem Sri Venkateswara Swamy Devasthanam is situated atop the hill called “Venkanna Konda” which is 3 km away from Vattem Village in Bijinepalli Mandal, Mahbubnagar district.
Thus, the officials decided to name a reservoir in Vattem as Venkatadri. The government of erstwhile AP government had named the projects after national and local leaders. Thus various projects were named Indira Sagar, Rajiv Sagar, BR Ambedkar Pranahita-Chevella, Rajiv Bhima Lift irrigation, Jawahar Nettempadu and J Chokkarao Devadula.
However, Nagarjuna Sagar project was named after Nagarjuna, a master of Mahayana Buddhism. Likewise, Srisailam project derived its name from the Siva temple.