Bigger KLIS aided contractors

Hyderabad: The previous BRS government seems to have acted in a dubious manner while enhancing the lifting capacity of the Kaleshwaram lift irrigation scheme from 2 tmc ft of water per day to 3 tmc ft (thousand million cubic feet).

The move helped the high-profile Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Limited (MEIL) grab additional contracts worth Rs 28,000 crore.

The Comptroller and Auditor General, who probed into the project, said: “Taking up of additional one TMC works at a huge cost was unwarranted and led to a substantial increase in the cost of KLIS.”

Significantly, in the first Assembly session after the Congress came to power, the ruling party leaders accused the BRS top leadership of enhancing the capacity to make a killing out of the enhanced contracts of Rs 28,000 crore given to MEIL.

The BRS government had submitted a detailed project report to the Central Water Commission (CWC) in February 2017 by which time contracts of the re-designed KLIS and Pranahita works worth Rs 50,000 crore were awarded to companies like MEIL, L&T, Navayuga, and Afcons.

The irrigation department proposed to lift 235 tmc ft in total, out of which 180 tmc ft would be from the Godavari River, 20 tmc ft from Yellampally, 25 tmc ft of groundwater, and 10 tmc ft from the yield of local tanks. It proposed to lift 180 tmc ft from Medigadda during the season at the rate of 2 tmc ft for 90 days.

The government awarded the pumphouse works to MEIL on August 27, 2016, and within 19 days the government, for reasons best known to it, revised the designs of civil works at the pump house, approach channel, and delivery mains to accommodate discharged pumping capacity of 3 tmc ft.

The justification for enhancing the capacity was found only two years later when the CWC pointed out that drawing 10 tmc ft from local water tanks cannot be considered. Instead, it wanted the government to lift 195 tmc ft of water from the Godavari itself.

The CAG said that lifting an additional 15 tmc ft from Godavari could be done either by increasing the number of pumping days from 90 to 98 or enhancing the motor capacities to lift 0.17 tmc ft. However, the BRS government in 2020 decided to install additional pumps and motors to lift 1 tmc ft.

“No justification for increasing the capacity by one more TMC is available in department records,” the CAG pointed out. The government also kept the CWC in the dark about creating infrastructure to lift 3 tmc ft in 2016 itself, at the time of submitting the DPR in 2018, the CAG revealed.

The CAG also expressed doubts over the viability of the pressurised piped irrigation system taken up with a cost of Rs 3,653 core. The government initially awarded the work for Rs 2,042 crore but increased by about Rs 1,500 crore though there was no additional aycut to be brought under cultivation.

Then irrigation minister T. Harish Rao defended the PPIS which, he said, would help avoid water evaporation losses. But, the CAG said, “The cost of PPIS works out to Rs 7,465 per acre against the open canal system cost of Rs 1,196 per acre”. Further, annual electricity charges to operate the PPIS will be Rs 3,778 per acre, it added.