AP Stealing Water While Revanth Brought Drought to Telangana: Harish
BRS leader alleges CM is allowing Andhra Pradesh to draw excessive Krishna River water
Hyderabad: Senior BRS leader T. Harish Rao on Thursday criticised the Congress government for “bringing on a drought” upon Telangana, calling the phenomenon “a drought not brought by nature but by Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy.”
Addressing a press conference, Harish Rao, former irrigation minister, said Revanth Reddy was silently watching Andhra Pradesh loot water from Krishna River. “The Chief Minister, who claims he is the ‘Son of Palamuru’, is stabbing the people of Palamuru in the back by not lifting Krishna waters,” he alleged, adding that it appeared as if for Revanth Reddy, everything was OK as long as his guru, AP Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, was doing well.
According to Telangana irrigation department figures, he claimed, AP took 35 tmc ft of water from Srisailam this year so far, while the Revanth Reddy government lifted just 7 tmc ft.
“Why is Revanth Reddy cooperating with AP in its diversion of water from Veligonda and Pothireddypadu projects? Because of Revanth's negligence, Krishna waters, which are a boon to Telangana, have become a boon for Andhra Pradesh,” he said.
For instance, at the Kalwakurthy lift irrigation scheme, only two of its five motors were running, on an on-and-off basis, for an average of just around 11 hours a day. Despite the potential to lift 4,000 cusecs a day, only 700 cusecs were being lifted, and even that by putting the motors at risk because of the constant switching on and switching off, Harish Rao said.
He said even farmers in the Chief Minister's constituency were holding protests just as they are doing in the rest of the state. There were also protests in front of sub-stations for power supply. This government shut down the 800 MW KTPS, 540-MW BTPS’ Units 3 and 4, and the Yadadri thermal power plant was generating only 2,000 MW of its total 4,000 MW capacity.
