Uttam Says It Is KCR, Harish Who Need to Answer to People on Palamuru Project
They built Kaleshwaram for commissions and pushed the state into massive debt, says irrigation minister
Hyderabad: Irrigation minister N. Uttam Kumar Reddy on Monday rejected charges levelled by senior BRS leader and former irrigation minister T. Harish Rao on the Palamuru Rangareddy lift irrigation scheme (PRLIS) and said “it is time for Harish Rao and KCR to stop making shameless claims and comments” on the state government.
During an informal conversation with reporters at the Secretariat, the minister said Harish Rao’s claims that he (Uttam Kumar Reddy) had asked for only 45 tmc ft of water for PRLIS was incorrect.
Referring to the issue raised by former chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao on Sunday and Harish Rao on Monday, Uttam Kumar Reddy said, “This is not a new issue and there is nothing new in my letter. What our letter mentioned was the previous agreement of the BRS government. It was KCR who divided 90 tmc ft for PRLIS into two 45 tmc ft parts.”
Uttam Kumar Reddy said PRLIS was yet to receive the full environmental clearances, and it was Chandrashekar Rao who cheated the people of Palamuru by not completing the project in his ten-year rule. “If their claim of completing 90 per cent of work is right, then why have they not managed to even irrigate a single acre using water from the project,” Uttam Kumar Reddy asked.
“It is they, KCR, Harish and the BRS which must apologise to the people for their failures. It is the BRS leaders who sold themselves out to Andhra by allowing AP to draw 3 tmc ft of water using the Rayalaseema lift irrigation scheme. After our Congress government came to power, we had that project stopped,” he said.
Uttam Kumar Reddy also said it was “KCR who agreed at the 2020 Krishna River Management Board that 45 tmc ft is enough. It was the BRS government which did not complete the Palamuru, Dindi, SLBC projects. KCR and Harish need to explain to the people why these projects were not completed.”
The irrigation minister also said that the government took an extremely serious view of breaches to check dams at Gumpula, and Adivisomanipalli and ordered a vigilance inquiry into the incidents. “The investigations will look into if the check dams had inferior quality of construction or if they were deliberately destroyed by someone. We will take very serious action on anyone found responsible for the destruction of the check dams,” he said.
