Union Minister and Telangana Bharatiya Janata Party president, G Kishan Reddy, visited the site of the Medigadda Barrage of Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project on Saturday and demanded a judicial inquiry or CBI probe into the alleged lapses in the project.
The Union Minister said that he took an update on the details of the work from the officials present.
He said that the National Dam Safety Authority (NDSA) repeatedly asked the Telangana State Dam Safety Organisation to carry out pre- and post-monsoon inspections to monitor unusual behaviour or signs of distress, but this directive had not been followed.
Reddy said that the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme has been promoted at the international level as the most outstanding project in the world, but thousands of crores of public money were wasted as “the project caved in due to faulty planning.”
“Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao is responsible. The engineers are suggesting rebuilding the project, and the report released by the Dam Safety Authority stated that the project caved in due to faulty planning, design, and quality,” the state BJP chief said.
Meanwhile, the state has been witnessing a war of words between the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) and the Congress party over the alleged lapses in the irrigation project.
Congress MP Rahul Gandhi on Thursday accused Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekar Rao of “looting” the people of Telangana, adding that KCR and his family are using the Kaleshwaram Project as their “personal ATM”.
Referring to the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme while addressing a ‘Mahila Sadassu’ in Ambatpally village in Telangana, Rahul Gandhi said, “Rs 1 lakh crore was stolen from the people of Telangana here. Nobody here benefited from it. Our workers are right that the Kaleshwaram project is BRS’s ATM but change it to ‘Kaleshwaram is KCR’s ATM, it is his family’s ATM.”
Rahul Gandhi later visited the Meddigadda barrage, a part of the Kaleswaram project where a few pillars of the barrage are reportedly sinking.
However, the Telangana Minister and BRS leader hit back at the Congress, asking the latter not “to lecture on corruption”.
The Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project (KLIP) is a multi-purpose irrigation project on the Godavari River in Telangana’s Kaleshwaram.
The project aims to produce a total of 240 TMC (195 from Medigadda Barrage, 20 from Sripada Yellampalli project and 25 from groundwater), of which 169 have been allocated for irrigation, 30 for Hyderabad municipal water, 16 for miscellaneous industrial uses, and 10 for drinking water in nearby villages, with the remainder being estimated evaporation loss, according to an official statement. (ANI)
