Yellampalli Crucial To Protect Farmers; Political Fight On

KARIMNAGAR: The Sripada Yellampalli project has emerged as a new subject for political leaders in Telangana to target each other. Earlier, leaders especially the Congress and BRS used to fight over the Kaleshwaram lift irrigation project.

The focus has been shifted to Yellampally since the project is crucial to protect crops in north Telangana in the Kharif season. This is the only project that got the highest inflows in recent times due to heavy rains.

In order to protest standing crops as well as ensure speedy agricultural activity, lifting of water from Yellampalli project has started by operating the Nandi pump and Gayatri pump houses. Besides directing water to the flood flow canal to fill the Mid Manair reservoir, water is also being sent to the SRSP rejuvenation project.

However, both the ruling and opposition parties are trying to claim the credit. While the BRS claims it materialised only because of the Kaleshwaram project, the Congress argues that Yellampally is helping to supply water to the agriculture sector.

In fact, Yellampally was not constructed as part of the Kaleshwaram project. Though it became operational during the BRS term in 2016, the project was completed during the Congress period. Both parties can make rightful claims.

Former Congress chief minister Y.S. Rajashekhar Reddy, who designed the Kaleshwaram as part of the Pranahita-Chevella project, laid the foundation for the project near Yellampalli village in Peddapalli district in July 2004.

Recently, in order to examine water levels in irrigation projects, irrigation minister Uttam Kumar Reddy along with other ministers visited the SRSP, Kaddem and Yellampalli projects that were constructed during the Congress terms.

Matchingly, BRS leaders visited the Nandi and Gayatri pumps that were developed as part of the Kaleshwaram project. Instead of the Yellampalli project, they examined the backwaters at Kotilingala in Velgatoor mandal.

Curiously, claiming that pump houses became impure with the visit of the BRS leaders, Congress activists held a ‘purification’ pooja at the Gayatri pump house on Monday.

Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, Peddapalli MLA Chinthakunta Vijayaramana Rao said the Yellampalli project was helping to supply water to standing crops in these difficult times. This was constructed by the Congress government, he stressed.

When asked about using pump houses constructed as part of Kaleshwaram project, the MLA said that they were not lifting water from the Medigadda, Annaram and Sundilla barrages developed as part of the Kaleshwaram endeavour. “So, the water being lifted belonged to the Yellampalli project,” he said.

Contrary to the Congress leaders’ argument, senior BRS leader and former irrigation development corporation chairman Eeda Shankar Reddy questioned how the government could draw water if the Nandi and Gayatri pump houses did not exist.

“Rajasekhar Reddy had decided to take water to Chevella through gravity canals and under tunnels. It was BRS chief minister K Chandrashekhar Rao who redesigned the project and developed pump houses and Bahubali motors to lift water from Yellampalli,” Shankar Reddy said.