Criminal negligence of BRS govt led to collapse of KLIS barrages:Uttam

Hyderabad: “Criminal negligence.” In these two words, irrigation minister N. Uttam Kumar Reddy on Saturday laid bare the opinion of the Congress government with respect to the design, construction and maintenance of Kaleshwaram project barrages.

“Never before has India seen such dereliction of duty. Medigadda barrage, the heart of Kaleshwaram, has collapsed. The damage is very serious. We will soon be releasing pictures of the damages to the foundations,” he said while addressing a press conference along with deputy chief minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka at the Secretariat here on Saturday.

To a question on the slowing down of the probe into the sinking, he said, “We are proceeding cautiously to establish the actual extent of the damage, because even Annaram and Sundilla barrages used the same design.”

Taking aim at his predecessor T. Harish Rao and his advice to the government on running pump houses and how to draw water from Medigadda barrage, Reddy said if there was so much knowledge “then it should have been used to prevent the barrage from sinking.”

He said the BRS leaders have been claiming since October 21, when the sinking happened, that it was just a small crack.

“We took office on December 7. KCR was the chief minister and his ministers were in their positions. Why did they not initiate any action other than trying to float a conspiracy theory that some bomb could have been set off to cause the damage?” he asked.

Bhatti said it is time for the BRS to stop blaming the Congress government on the Kaleshwaram issue. All they did was to build three barrages, the rest of the components like Mid Manair and SRSP canal were existing. The dam safety authority said Annaram and Sundilla barrages too face the same dangers as that at Medigadda. Those with a destructive bent of mind, speak like how the BRS does.”

On BRS’ claim that the Congress government has decided to hand over control of Krishna projects to the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB), Reddy said “we made our stand clear at the meeting and there is no question of handing anything over to KRMB. Our stand remains the same as that of the BRS government, which agreed to an in-principle decision on this, if certain conditions are met. If any mistake happened, it happened during their regime. We have been in power just for about 40 days.”

He said “K. Chandrashekar Rao must first explain why his government allowed 8 to 10 TMC of water to be siphoned off by Andhra Pradesh, when he was in power. What had transpired in the closed door meetings he had with his AP counterpart Jagan? Huge lift projects like Sangameswara were built by AP from where it takes water away that should come through gravity to Telangana. Instead of ensuring this, KCR spent `94,000 core on Kaleshwaram for just two TMC of water.”