State Govt will Table Vigilance Report on Medigadda in Assembly: CM Revanth

The previous Congress government had launched the Pranahitha-Chevella project at `38,500 crore in 2008 but BRS president and then Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao redesigned it as Kaleshwaram and escalated the project cost to `1,45,00 crore, Revanth Reddy told the Assembly on Tuesday, before setting out for a site inspection.

The Congress plan had one barrage at Tummidihatti against the three built according to Rao's plan at Medigadda, Annaram and Sundilla.

The BRS government had spent over `1 lakh crore on Kaleshwaram project but even after spending such a huge amount the barrages had developed cracks and the pillars were sinking due to faulty design and poor quality of works, Revanth Reddy added.

"Till now, even the DPR (detailed project report) of the Kaleshwaram project is not available with the government. They spent over Rs `1 lakh crore on a project which does not have even a DPR. Such was the utter negligence of the BRS government," he stated.

Explaining the reasons for the state government organising a site visit to Medigadda for MLAs and MLCs from all parties, Revanth Reddy said that after barrage piers sank in October last year, the BRS government had deployed a large police force at the site if it was the India-Pakistan Wagah border, to prevent anyone from visiting the project and seeing the condition of the structure for themselves.

"No one knows what actually happened to the Medigadda barrage. To clear the doubts, our government decided to arrange the site visit. We also invited media personnel to visit the barrage and know the facts. But BRS and BJP MLAs decided to boycott the visit, which is unfortunate."

The purpose of barrage visit was to apprise everyone of the actual condition of Medigadda barrage so that the issue could be discussed meaningfully in the Assembly when the House took the debate on irrigation projects.

The CM even offered to arrange a helicopter for Chandrashekar Rao to visit Medigadda if he felt that it would be inconvenient on health grounds for him to travel by bus along with him and MLAs.