KCR responsible for KLIS failure: Ponnam

Warangal: Congress former MP Ponnam Prabhakar took Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao to task for not taking responsibility for the damage that occurred to the Medigadda barrage of the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme (KLIS) as he boasted that the project was conceived and redesigned by himself only, incapacitating the engineers and despising the suggestions from experts.

As part of the ‘Chalo Kaleshwaram’ call given by the former MP, along with Congress leaders and farmers from the Husnabad constituency, on Wednesday left for the Medigadda barrage site in the Jayashankar Bhupalpally district in three buses to examine the defects in the construction works.

However, the police detained them at Mahadevpur mandal. Later, they allowed Ponnam Prabhakar and some other leaders to visit the barrage, following a dharna.

After inspecting the project, Prabhakar castigated the BRS government for its silence on the damage to the barrage and questioned why it was not allowing the Central team to investigate the construction defects and quality of the project.

He asked the government how it could pump out the water from the Kaleshwaram project with the motor pumps drowned and damaged barrage to the Gouravelli project in Husnabad constituency, as MLA V. Satish Kumar promised to the farmers of his constituency.

Ponnam faulted the Chief Minister for handing over the project contract to his cronies. He also said that KCR would foist cases against the engineers and contractors of the KLIS project by pinning the blame on them for its failure.