Hyderabad: Social activists have questioned why no White Paper has been put out by the government on the much hyped Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme (KLIS) project, and environmentalists have alleged that the government went ahead with the project ignoring the adverse impact it would have on the environment.
The Forum For Good Governance has expressed its doubts about the project. Forum secretary and former IFS officer M. Padmanabha Reddy, said, “After the TRS government came to power, it extended the Pranahita Chevella lift irrigation scheme to the Kaleshwaram lift irrigation project which was to cost around Rs 35,000 crore and is now costing more than Rs 80,000 crore. Only 40 per cent of the allocated budget has be-en spent and the government claims the project is almost completed.”
Mr Reddy said that he had written a letter to the Lokayukta for a White Paper (a government report giving detailed information or proposal on an issue) on the project, but the government said there is no provision for filing a White Paper, which should make every taxpayer doubt the project as they have a right to know where their hard-earned money is going.
TRS working president K.T. Rama Rao is assuring the public that project Kaleshwaram will make water flow in eve-ry tap, but environmentalists have said it is a waste of thousands of crores of public money.
Environmental activi-st Prof. K. Purushotham Reddy said Kaleshwa-ram was a “self-claimed beneficial project by the TRS government. I am questioning the project itself as environmentalists are against big dams. The conventional view is that you build a major dam and villages over a large area get submerged, tribals are displaced and never get proper compensation. When we are talking about sustainable development, the best alternative is to harness rainwater. We in Telangana have been demanding that former engineer-in-chief and former consultant to the United Nations, T Hanumantha Rao’s brainchild ‘Four Waters Concept’ should be applied, which is cost-effective and will recharge groundwater for irrigation for three crops a year.”
Telangana has invested more than Rs 80,000 crore in the Kaleshwar-am project, which is not going to serve the whole state. Is Telangana restricted to just 18 lakh acres, asked another environmentalist.
