Telangana asks Centre to pay Kaleshwaram’s bills

Hyderabad: The state government on Friday asked the Centre to consider its request and declare the Rs 88,000-crore multi -package Kaleshwaram lift irrigation scheme a national project and fund it in its entirety.

The state government has paid for the construction of the scheme, the largest in the world, which was inaugurated on Friday.

Mr K. Rama Krishna Rao, principal secretary of finance, made the request at a pre-Budget meeting convened by Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman with finance ministers of all states, in New Delhi.

The Centre had invited Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao as he also holds the finance portfolio in the state. As he was busy with the inauguration of the Kaleshwaram project, the finance secretary read out Mr Rao’s speech at the meeting.

He said the Kaleshwaram project was being paid for from the borrowings by the Kaleshwaram Corporation. As Telangana state suffers from a lack of irrigation facilities because of neglect in the combined state, the state government constructed the project. Additional funds were required to complete it, he said.

Maintaining that the debt servicing burden was huge, the state government requested the Centre to declare it as a national project.     

The state government asked the Centre to consider the recommendations of the Niti Aayog for the releasing of funds to Mission Kakatiya and Mission Bhagiratha and include 32 districts of the state in the backward districts lists and sanction funds for them.

The state government wanted the Centre to set up the steel plant in Bayyaram as promised at the time of state bifurcation.