Hyderabad: Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao is keen on Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiling a pylon for his dream Telangana Water Grid project.
Though the project works have been launched by taking up construction of intake wells in Warangal and Adilabad districts recently, the project pylon was not formally unveiled so far.
A 60-feet tall pylon was constructed on three acres at Choutuppal in Nalgonda district at a cost of Rs 1.50 crore.
Though Mr Rao was supposed to unveil the pylon, he has been postponing the inaugural event for three months now. Official sources say this was because the CM wants it to be unveiled by the PM soon and would seek Rs 8,000-crore special package from the Centre to execute the Rs 40,000 crore water grid project. Mobilisation of funds to complete the project before 2019 general elections became a daunting task for the TS government.
Mr Rao already made statements inside and outside the Legislative Assembly several times that the TRS would not seek votes in 2019 elections, if it fails to deliver Water Grid project by then. Such is priority being given for this particular project by the CM.
The government has already tied up with various funding agencies to secure Rs 25,000 crore loans for the project. However, it still needs another Rs 15,000 crore to complete the project and the CM wants to seek a special package from the Centre by inviting Mr Modi to launch the project.
Mr Rao is confident that Mr Modi will agree to launch the project, since it is based on the Gujarat-water grid model, which earned name and fame for Mr Modi, during his tenure as Gujarat CM.
“The CM will visit New Delhi soon after the PM returns from his ongoing foreign tour and extend an invitation to launch the water grid pylon,” said an official of panchayat raj department.
However, it remains to be seen whether it would materialise or not given that the repeated invitations extended to union minister for water resources Uma Bharti to launch "Mission Kakatiya" for restoration of water bodies, proved futile.
