Hyderabad: Telangana State irrigation minister T. Harish Rao has been keeping his department engineers and staff on their toes with his “night halts” at irrigation projects.
With not much pro-gress in restoration of tanks and lakes under Mission Kakatiya and work on irrigation projects pending, the minister has started visiting irrigation projects and lakes in districts and having night halts to speed up work.
With minister himself present at night at irrigation project sites, the engineers and staff are a harried lot and trying their best to speed up the work.
Mr Rao, who visited Mahbubnagar on Fri-day to review the prog-ress of Kalwakurthy lift irrigation project stage-2, conducted a review me-eting throughout the day and surprised ever-yone with his ‘night halt’ at the irrigation project.
The unexpected development created a huge impact as entire district administration turned up at the irrigation project site and several pen-ding issues like land ac-quisition, compensati-on etc, were cleared on the spot enabling faster works. With this, the minister has decided to have night halts at all pending irrigation projects.
Though the government has been giving utmost importance to irrigation projects by sanctioning Rs 25,000 crore every year, there is no progress in irrigation projects due to negligence of officials, he said.
“Since the night halt at Kalwakurthy gave good results, I have decided to visit projects in other districts too and monitor works day and night. My next night halt will be at Nettempad to monitor the works of Palamur lift irrigation project,” Rao said. The minister has been taking officials to task for delay in works and warning them of suspension.
Harish warns Naidu, Jagan on Telangana interests
Irrigation minister T. Harish Rao on Sunday threatened AP Chief Minister N. Chandra-babu Naidu and YSRC chief Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy with “severe consequences” if they try to obstruct the irr-igation projects taken up by the Telangana state government.
Mr Rao said both Mr Naidu and Mr Reddy should realise that th-ey hold assets in Hy-derabad. If they try to harm the interests of Telangana state, they would be chased away from Hyderabad, he said
“Like we waged a ba-ttle to achieve Telangana, we are ready to wage another battle to construct irrigation projects and ensure that the state gets its justifiable share of water in Godavari and Krishna rivers. When the TD and YSRC are trying to obstruct our projects, why are their leaders in Telangana silent,” Mr Harish Rao said.
“YSRC Khammam MP Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy and TS TD working president A. Revanth Reddy “owe an explanation to the people,”Mr Harish Rao told mediapersons in his home constituency Siddipet.
Mr Rao alleged that Mr Naidu and Mr Reddy had hatched a conspiracy to obstruct TS projects but the TRS government would th-wart their attempts and ensure that the target of irrigating one crore acres in the state will be met, come what may.
“The Seemandhra leaders continue to harm the interests of Telangana state even after bifurcation. This will not be tolerated,” Mr Rao said. He said Mr Naidu was “shameless” in trying to obstruct the Palamuru-Ranga Re-ddy project by repeatedly writing letters to the Centre and appro-aching the Supreme Court.
He came down heavily on Mr Reddy for an-nouncing hunger stri-ke demanding stoppage of Palamuru pro-ject. “His father Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy loo-ted Telangana water in undivided AP and his son is trying to continue his father’s legacy,” Mr Rao said.
