Reddy said “had the BRS government completed the works, Telangana would have got its rightful share of Krishna water, an issue we are facing trouble with now.”
HYDERABAD: Telangana’s water woes are a creation of the BRS regime, particularly with reference to projects on River Krishna, as the then government did not take any steps to complete 16 reservoirs, which, between them, could have stored up to 100.541 tmc ft of water, irrigation minister N. Uttam Kumar Reddy said.
“By adding 2.468 tmc ft capacity of the existing Dindi reservoir, which was to be part of the Sri Ramaraju Vidyasagar Rao Dindi lift irrigation scheme, the total capacity lost on account of BRS government’s neglect comes to 103.009 tmc ft. All these projects are in the erstwhile unified Nalgonda and Mahbubnagar districts,” Reddy said.
In a statement, the minister said that not completing the reservoirs has “become a big drawback in storing water in Telangana region of Krishna river basin through the Nagarjuna sagar and Srisailam reservoirs, which are common to Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.”
Reddy said “had the BRS government completed the works, Telangana would have got its rightful share of Krishna water, an issue we are facing trouble with now.”
The irrigation minister said, “the entire responsibility for the sorry state of affairs for Telangana rests with the then chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao, and the then irrigation minister T. Harish Rao. The Congress government is working to complete all the projects in Krishna basin in the next three years and correct the wrongs of the past.”
The BRS leaders, who served as ministers, have no moral or any other right to speak on Krishna basin projects. The BRS government had no intention of completing them and hence did not release funds for them. The BRS regime also burdened the state with `1.81 lakh crore debt with loans taken for irrigation projects but played the instrumental role in the injustice done to Telangana on Krishna waters issue, he said.
“The BRS government should have completed reservoirs under the SLBC, Dindi lift irrigation and Palamuru Rangareddy lift irrigation schemes. While it did not do this, it also neglected several other projects in various stages of completion in the Krishna basin in the state resulting in the situation today,” Reddy said.
Projects left incomplete by BRS government
Storage capacity not created – 103.009 tmc ft
Palamuru Rangareddy lift irrigation scheme
Anjanagiri BR** - 6.40*
Veerajnjaneya BR – 6.55
Venkatadri BR – 16.74
Kurumurthyraya BR – 19.00
Udandapur BR – 16.03
KP Laxmidevipally BR – 2.80
SRVR Dindi LIS
Pothireddypalli – 0.225
Singarajpally*** - 0.81
Gottimukkala*** – 1.839
Irwin – 0.553
Yerrapalli-Gokavaram – 1.182
Dindi (existing) – 2.468
Chintapally*** - 0.91
Kistarampally BR – 5.686
Shivannagudem BR – 11.968
AMR SLBC project
Dindi BR – 7.648
Pendlipakala BR – 2.220
*in tmc ft; **Balancing reservoir; ***Offline reservoir
