Jalshakti Ministry advisor points to holes in KLIS planning

Hyderabad: The then BRS government took several shortcuts, and sought to place the blame and responsibility for the Kaleshwaram project coming unstuck on the Central Water Commission (CWC), the Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose commission of inquiry probing alleged irregularities in construction of the Kaleshwaram project’s barrages, was informed on Tuesday. The BRS government attempted to project untenable excuses for its own failures, the commission was told.

After making a presentation to Justice Ghose, Union jal shakti ministry adviser Sriram Vedire told reporters: “under the pretext of unavailability of water, and then putting the onus wrongly on CWC, they re-engineered the project and moved it from Tummidihatti to Medigadda only to make some unknown interests served. This action cost the state an additional `90,000 crore, and the new command area is less than 2 lakh areas, putting the interests of generations of people of the state in jeopardy.”

Vedire said once the state’s own Central Designs Organization submitted a certificate stating that the survey, investigation, design and modelling etc. were done as per guidelines, CWC had no further role in the appraisal of the detailed project report (DPR).

He said only four months were given to prepare a DPR to the agency but for preparing the reports the required field and geotechnical and other tests alone will take eight months to a year. “The hurried preparation of the DPR led to improper planning and designs, all of which contributed to the current state of affairs,” he said.