Hyderabad: State BJP president G. Kishan Reddy on Monday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make some modifications in the Polavaram Dam Ordinance so that people in both AP and Telangana, especially Khammam, would be happy.
Mr Reddy also requested the Prime Minister to ensure that the Centre takes control of the seven submerged mandals in Khammam district instead of merging them in Seemandhra. “The Centre can take control of these mandals until the rehabilitation measures are undertaken, and then transferred them back to the Telangana state. There is no need to transfer this land to AP as the project’s responsibility lies with the Central government,” Mr Reddy said.
He added that Telangana will lose the 460 MW Sileru power project, which is the only hydro power project that generates hydro power all around the year, if these seven mandals are transferred to AP.
“Our proposal of the Central government taking over the land will serve a two-fold purpose. It will allay the fear among people from Andhra Pradesh that if the seven mandals are with Tel-angana, then the incumbent government may hamper construction. And since the mandals are going to be remerged into Telangana, the people of Telangana will not have any sense of deprivation of the benefits mentioned above.”
He said the present design of the Polavaram project permanently curbs the inland water transportation to land locked Telangana. If the project design is tweak-ed a bit, Telangana and Maharashtra would benefit from the inland wat-er transportation of sea going vessels from Bay of Bengal on Godavari.
“This will boost the economy of the state with manufacturing in-dustries, tourism and shipping industries cropping up all along the river Godavari giving direct and indirect employment to about one crore people,” Mr Reddy said.
He said Union minister Nitin Gadkari had promised to consider the representation given by the BJP state unit delegation on the issue recently.
“But for this to become a reality we need to change the design of the Polavaram project without in any way affecting the benefits of this project. Such alternative designs are already made available with experts and can be considered,” Mr Reddy said.
