Hyderabad: Heated arguments broke out between the Congress and the BRS in the Legislative Assembly on Friday over the issue of sharing Krishna waters and handing over projects on the river to the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB).
The war of words finally led to Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy announced that he would arrange buses on behalf of the state government for all the 119 MLAs, 40 MLCs, and 17 Lok Sabha and seven Rajya Sabha members on February 13 to visit the Kaleshwaram project to examine and assess the flawed project design and poor quality of works during the BRS regime, which led to sinking of piers of Medigadda barrage and Annaram, Sundilla barrages also development cracks and how the previous government wasted over Rs 1 lakh crore for construction of this project.
Revanth Reddy also appealed to the Leader of Opposition and former chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao to be part of this trip to Kaleshwaram.
The Chief Minister accused the previous BRS government of supporting Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy to occupy the Nagarjunasagar project, located in Telangana state, by deploying the AP police force on the Assembly polling day on November 30.
He alleged that Rao had remained a ‘mute spectator’ even as the Jagan Mohan Reddy government tried to draw 12 tmc ft (thousand million cubic feet) of water per day from Srisailam for the Rayalaseema lift irrigation scheme.
"It was KCR who gave his consent to AP to draw 512 tmc ft of water in the Krishna River out of the 811 tmc ft that is available, and 299 tmc ft to Telangana which is a huge loss soon after the formation of the state," he said.
Harish Rao strongly condemned the Chief Minister’s remarks and accused the Congress government of handing over projects on the Krishna to KRMB in a secret manner in the meetings held by the Jal Shakti ministry in Delhi last month.
Harish Rao read out the minutes of these meetings which led to furore in the House.
Intervening in the issue, irrigation minister Uttam Kumar Reddy countered Harish Rao's claims stating that the latter was conveniently reading the contents of minutes of the meeting which suits his part while deliberately ignoring the other contents which clearly stated that the TS government had not agreed to handover projects to KRMB.
The Chief Minister said around 30 km of tunnel was dug for the Srisailam Left Bank Canal (SLBC) project till 2014. The BRS government in 10 years had dug only 1.5 km, he said, and added that it government also failed in completing the Kalwakurthy, Koyalsagar, and Bhimsagar projects.
"The BRS rulers undertook only those projects where they got commissions and kickbacks. They neglected projects that were started by previous Congress governments. These projects could have been completed with minimum funds and farmers could have derived maximum benefits. But the BRS government constructed the Kaleshwaram project with Rs 1 lakh crore which now turned useless," Revanth Reddy said.
