Krishna water is only for southern districts: T Harish Rao
Hyderabad: Irrigation minister T. Harish Rao on Monday told farmers in erstwhile Mahabubnagar district that southern Telangana region districts would get more share of the Krishna waters once the Justice Brijesh Kumar Tribunal announced final allocations among Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
At a farmers’ convention in Wanaparthy district on Monday, he said the tribunal would complete the proceedings soon and announce final award.
“Once we come to know about the final allocation to the state, we are going to re-distribute the allocations and the government is committed to confine the Krishna water usage only for the exclusive use of southern Telangana like erstwhile Mahabu-bnagar, Rangareddy and parts of Nalgonda.”
With Kaleswaram project to be completed in the near future, almost all the north Telangana districts, including Khammam, would be fed by the Godavari waters, besides half the parts of erstwhile Nalgonda districts.
Referring to the initiatives by the TRS government during the last three years in the irrigation sector, he said, “Once this region was known as not-fit to raise grass, now for the last three years due to various lift irrigation schemes opened by us we could see ‘tunga’ grass (grows only when land is wet) is seen everywhere.”
At another programme, he pooh-poohed PCC president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy for his statement that the Congress would get 70 seats in the coming elections. He appealed to Congress leaders to withdraw cases filed against construction of irrigation schemes if they were really committed to Telangana development.
Congress leaders like K.K. Mahender Reddy filed cases against the Mallanna Sagar project with signatures of a few farmers who died long back.