Hyderabad: Top bureaucrats during the BRS regime – a former chief secretary and retired IAS officer Somesh Kumar, and the other, also an IAS officer and the then secretary to the chief minister Smita Sabharwal - on Thursday said that they either could not remember, or recall, or claimed that they were unaware of the goings inside the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) on several issues related to the three Kaleshwaram project barrages at Medigadda, Annaram, and Sundilla.
During Thursday’s cross examination by the Justice P.C. Ghose commission of inquiry into various aspects of the Kaleshwaram project barrages, Kumar and Sabharwal, informed the commission that there were some decisions that may have been taken by the then chief minister without them being part of the decision-making process with regard to the barrages.
Kumar, who informed Justice Ghose that he was holding full additional charge (FAC) of the post of principal secretary of irrigation department from May 2, 2019 to August 18, 2019, however, said that he could not recall the date of inauguration of the Medigadda barrage by the then chief minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao. He said had he been holding the position at the time of the inauguration, he could have remembered it.
Incidentally, Medigadda, along with Annaram and Sundilla barrages were inaugurated on June 21, 2019.
To a question whether he had, during his term as the chief secretary between December 31, 2019 and January 10, 2023, dealt with issues related to the three barrages in any manner, Kumar said that he could not recollect if he did so. He also said that he may have cleared some files pertaining to Kaleshwaram project based on information provided by irrigation officials. On the subject whether any financial matters related to the barrages had come to him, he replied in the negative.
During the questioning, Justice Ghose also warned Kumar not to enter into a debate with him and stick to responding to the questions that were being posed.
Sabharwal, responding to several questions from Justice Ghose, said that she was unaware of the matters raised in the questions. Among these were questions related to the unilateral administrative sanctions of thousands of crores of rupees for construction of Medigadda, Annaram, and Sundilla barrages by the then chief minister without cabinet approval. She said that it was not uncommon to provide financial sanctions due to urgency of the matter at hand and concurrence was taken as a subsequent ratification.
Answering questions on the barrages, she informed the panel that some decisions that were taken by the then irrigation minister would not have gone to the chief minister or the cabinet as such decisions were made at the minister’s level.
To a question whether she, as the secretary to the CM, had ever noticed any dissenting notes or observations on the files pertaining to the three barrages sent to the CMO from the chief secretary for the chief minister’s attention, Sabharwal said that no such notes were on any of the files pertaining to the barrages. She also said that in her position in the CMO, she too did not raise any flags, or had provided any dissent notes on this particular subject.
