Hyderabad: “I am stunned. We are shocked. Never in the history of independent India has there been a scam of this proportion.” This was irrigation minister N. Uttam Kumar Reddy speaking about the Sitarama irrigation project redesign by the BRS government on the Godavari at Dummugudem of Bhadradri-Kothagudem district. Uttam Kumar Reddy said “I want to highlight this. One comes across incidents where sums of Rs 10 crore or Rs 20 crore are wasted. But this beats them all.”
Uttam Kumar Reddy, accompanied by Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Virkarmarka and Revenue Minister Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy, addressed a press conference at the Secretariat after a review of irrigation projects in the erstwhile united Khammam district. “For 10 years, the BRS painted a picture of great achievements in irrigation. What happened was that the irrigation department was destroyed,” he said.
Bhatti too said the Sitarama project was a huge scam, adding “all that was needed to provide irrigation to 3.3 lakh acres was completion of the Rajivsagar, and Indirasagar projects which required Rs 1,552 crore to be spent.”
He said that instead, under the guise of redesigning, the BRS government hiked the cost to a total of Rs 23,000 crore by allocating Rs 4,481 crore to Sitammasagar multipurpose barrage while for Sitarama, the cost was pegged at Rs 18,500 crore. “So far, not a single acre has received water from the redesigned project,” he added.
On former irrigation minister T. Harish Rao’s claims that the Congress government was reported to have agreed to hand over all Krishna river projects to Krishna Water Management Board, Uttam Kumar Reddy said, “It is true that KRMB asked us and AP to hand over control of Nagarjunasagar and Srisailam projects. We have not agreed to any such proposals. I will be speaking on this in detail in the Assembly.”
Harish Rao’s comments were misleading and there was no truth in them, he added. “BRS has no right to talk about Krishna water. Did BRS ever protest when AP was taking water from Srisailam reservoir backwaters to Rayalaseema? Did Harish or KCR ever talk about it and say how much of a loss that is for Telangana?” Uttam Kumar Reddy asked.
Infogrpah Inset
Irrigation department in deep waters.
BRS government spent Rs 2 lakh core and mortgaged the state for generations to come.
KCR government borrowed at 10.5 to 11 per cent interest.
In the coming financial year, the irrigation department needs Rs 18,000 crore just for paying interest and principal.
Separately, Rs 2,000 crore is needed as establishment cost.
BRS left Congress government with Rs 9,500 crore in unpaid bills.
