Hyderabad, July 26 (NSS): Minister for Irrigation Uttam Kumar Reddy has informed that the State government will start lifting of water from the Sripada Yellampalli Irrigation project in next three days and all the reservoirs built on the Kaleshwaram project will be filled with this water.
Speaking at a press conference at Jalasouda here on Friday, the Minister said that at present, the Yellampalli project has 15.5 TMC of water and it has been receiving good inflows from its upper catchment areas and the pumping of water from the project will be started to fill all the reservoirs of the Kaleshwaram project.
Dismissing the demand of BRS working president KT Rama Rao who asked the State government to lift the water from the Lakshmi (Kannepally) pump house of the Kaleshwaram lift irrigation project, the Minister made it clear that the State government will go ahead as per the instructions of the National Dam Safety Authority ( NDSA) which suggested that all gates of Medigadda barrage shall be kept open and water should not be stored.
“If water is stored at the Medigadda barrage, the tributary areas of Godavari will be submerged and there is a possibility of huge loss. We think the recommendations of NDSA are more standardized than the suggestions of KTR. The State government has decided to release water from three barrages as per the instructions of NDSA,” Uttam disclosed.
The Minister alleged that the Kaleshwaram project was constructed only for the commissions by the previous BRS government and a large scale of corruption was taken place during the execution of the project.
He further alleged that former chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao had destroyed the entire irrigation sector during the last ten years in Telangana and the Congress government was forced to pay Rs.15,000 crores monthly for the repayment of loans taken from the Non-banking finance institutions.
