Hyderabad: Former engineer-in-chief (general) of the irrigation department, C. Muralidhar Rao, is no longer in service with the government accepting his resignation from the post.
It may be recalled that irrigation minister N. Uttam Kumar Reddy had directed Rao to put in his papers on February 7 as part of the government’s clean-up of the department, after the Medigadda barrage fiasco when a portion of which sank last October.
In orders issued on Monday, the state government said that it had accepted Rao’s resignation with effect from February 8. Rao’s continuation in the post, especially since he was considered a close confidant of former chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao whose government planned and built the Kaleshwaram lift irrigation scheme, which is now in trouble due to problems at Medigadda, Annaram and Sundilla barrages, was unexpected.
However, the present government did not ask for his resignation until the vigilance and enforcement wing’s investigation into the sinking showed that the office of the ENC had much to answer.
