BRS and Congress leaders exchange accusations regarding the Kaleshwaram project’s management as Hyderabad faces water shortages. Meanwhile, technical teams conduct rigorous safety and geotechnical testing at the damaged barrage sites.
Political Tensions Escalate Over Kaleshwaram Project
BRS Party MLAs and senior leaders on Saturday inspected the Kannepalli (Lakshmi) Pump House and Medigadda Barrage of the Kaleshwaram project and sought to draw attention to the large quantities of Godavari water flowing downstream and eventually into the sea, as Hyderabad faces growing concerns over drinking water supplies. The BRS leaders alleged that the Congress government failed to utilise the available water by operating the pumps at Kannepalli, thereby aggravating the city’s water crisis.
Government Response and Allegations of Mismanagement
Meanwhile, Telangana Irrigation Minister Uttam Kumar Reddy launched a scathing attack on the previous BRS (TRS) administration, holding corruption and incompetence squarely responsible for the collapse and mismanagement of key state irrigation infrastructure. Speaking to reporters, Reddy contrasted the current administration’s performance with past failures and asserted that agricultural metrics have reached unprecedented heights under Congress rule. “Regarding the use of river waters, we have proved with facts and figures that the utilisation of Krishna and Godavari waters, agricultural acreage and paddy production in Telangana have been at their highest since the Congress government came to power… The irrigation failures and mismanagement occurred under the TRS government. The Medigadda Barrage and Kaleshwaram project have collapsed due to TRS corruption and incompetence,” Uttam Kumar Reddy told reporters.
Comparison of Irrigation Projects
Backing these assertions, Telangana Minister Vivek Venkata Swamy labelled the Kaleshwaram venture an engineering disaster, contrasting it with legacy projects built during prior Congress tenures. “Irrigation Minister Uttam Kumar Reddy rightly called the Kaleshwaram project a disaster. The barrages have been damaged due to faulty design. Dams such as Yellampalli, Pochampad, Nagarjuna Sagar and Srisailam, built under Congress governments, remain intact and functional, whereas the Kaleshwaram project, built under the TRS government, has suffered damage,” Vivek Venkata Swamy told reporters.
Technical Rehabilitation Efforts
Addressing the technical and scientific remediation underway at the distressed sites, Col Parikshit Mehra, Chairman and Convenor of the committee overseeing the rehabilitation of the Medigadda, Annaram, and Sundilla barrages, detailed the rigorous testing protocols implemented following central safety reviews. “I am looking after the rehabilitation design. The genesis goes to the NDA inspection. Post the collapse of Medigadda, where NDA gave out a series of directions about how to carry out the rehabilitation, how to carry out geotechnical testing and geophysical testing, you know, in addition to what was done earlier, because there were a lot of lacunas there, is what they found out. And based on that, we actually, over the last about 1 year, have carried out geotechnical tests, geophysical tests, special tests like the cone penetration tests and low-frequency ground-penetrating radar tests to be able to characterise the ground below these,” Parikshit Mehra told ANI.
Meanwhile, as opposition leaders inspected the compromised Medigadda site, Minister D. Sridhar Babu dismissed the tour as hollow posturing by those who engineered the disaster. “How many times will they visit the Medigadda Barrage when they themselves are responsible for its destruction? It is good that they are visiting to witness what they built and then ruined. Their own mistakes caused the barrage to sink, resulting in huge losses to the exchequer,” Sridhar Babu told reporters. (ANI)
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