Hyderabad: Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has been preparing to give a marathon PowerPoint presentation for legislators on March 31 during which he will unveil the Telangana state’s new irrigation policy and his government's vision on irrigation projects.
However, there is uncertainty over the venue of the programme. While the CM is keen to give the presentation inside the Legislative Assembly by setting up two giant screens, the Opposition parties are against this and want it to be held either in the Committee Hall in the Assembly premises or any other venue outside.
There is also confusion over whether a joint sitting of Legislative Assembly and Council would be convened for the purpose since officials point out that the existing rules do not permit holding of a joint sitting except for Governor’s address.
The Business Advisory Committee of the Assembly, which met on Sunday to discuss on this could not reach a consensus on the venue and left the final decision on Speaker S. Madhusudhana Chary.
Irrigation officials said Mr Rao has readied a three-and-a-half hour PowerPoint presentation on how Telangana got a raw deal in undivided AP on the irrigation front, the need for redesigning existing projects and taking up new projects to achieve the target to irrigate one crore acres.
They said that the CM has already conducted rehearsals 55 times since October last year and another 10 at his camp office in Begumpet during the last 15 days and collected data of how many barrages were built by Maharashtra and Karnataka states on the Godavari and Krishna rivers over the years by studying Google Maps on his own.
The CM’s presentation would highlight the premise that TS can no more depend on Krishna inflows due to illegal barrages constructed by upstream states and the only option left was to utilise Godavari water by redesigning existing projects and taking up new ones.
Mr Rao even skipped the Assembly session on Sunday and was confined to his camp office in Begumpet to give final touches to his PowerPoint presentation.
“The entire exercise has been done by CM alone in the last six months. We just provided technical support. The CM undertook elaborate research over the hundreds of barrages constructed by Maharashtra and Karnataka states over the years. He has come out with limited options available for TS at this stage to utilise Godavari and Krishna waters to the maximum possible extent to resolve irrigation and drinking water woes in state,” a senior irrigation official said.
Mr Rao is said to have identified about 400 illegal barrages and other structures.
