BRS accuses Telangana government of failing to use Kaleshwaram water
BRS general secretary T. Jeevan Reddy has accused the Telangana government of worsening water shortages by not carrying out minor repairs to Kaleshwaram Project barrages. He said water could have been lifted for irrigation and drinking needs and argued that repairing damaged infrastructure would have cost far less than the project’s overall expenditure.
The Bharat Rashtra Samithi has accused the Telangana government of failing to use available water from the Kaleshwaram Project despite an opportunity to carry out what it described as minor repairs. BRS general secretary and former minister T. Jeevan Reddy said farmers and the public were facing shortages for irrigation and domestic use in a year affected by El Niño conditions.
He alleged that the Congress government had not repaired the project’s three barrages sufficiently to lift water from the backwaters. More than 1,100 tmc ft of surplus water had flowed into the sea, he said. Mr Reddy argued that Telangana could use the water this year because many reservoirs had low storage.
He also referred to infrastructure developed by the previous government to pump water back into the Sriramsagar project, which he said was operating at half capacity. The BRS leader said the National Dam Safety Authority had given the State government freedom to decide whether water should be lifted from the Kaleshwaram barrages. Discussing the Medigadda barrage, Mr Reddy said that even using the Congress government’s estimate of ₹1 lakh crore for the Kaleshwaram project, the barrage and its seventh block represented much smaller sums.
He estimated the damaged portion could be repaired for ₹200 crore. Mr Reddy said spending that amount could have returned the structure to use and helped avoid drought conditions. The supplied report carried his allegations but did not include a response from the Telangana government.
This independently written report is based on information supplied by the named publisher. Vertrix News has not independently verified the source report.