CAG highlighted Rs 52,000-Cr corruption of Congress in Jalayagnam, Rs 900 Cr in Kalwakurthy: KTR

HYDERABAD: Criticising the Congress for highlighting the comments of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report on the Kaleshwaram project, BRS working president KT Rama Rao (KTR) said that the same CAG nailed the then Congress Government’s corruption in executing ‘Jala Yagnam’.

Addressing media at the Telangana Bhavan on Tuesday, KTR said that the so-called great Congress leaders, including former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and former Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy, lambasted CAG reports during their tenure. “The CAG reports are not holy scriptures, they said,” KTR noted.

Recalling the CAG report on ‘Jala Yagnam’ and the Rs 900-crore corruption in the execution of the Kalwakurthy project, he said Chief Minister Revanth Reddy was indulging in doublespeak. He also said that the Congress Government, which criticised the BRS on debt taken for development, had proposed huge loans in its interim budget.

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Blaming the Congress for neglecting the irrigation sector for over six decades causing distress in the farming sector, KTR said that it was K Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) who had revived the irrigation sector in the state by taking up and completing irrigation projects. “Balladeers like Gaddar and Sadasivudu wrote many a song about the Telangana dry lands and the struggle of the people of Telangana for drinking water,” he said.

KTR said that the Congress unveiled the ‘Jala Yagnam’ programme only after KCR undertook his fight for Telangana’s due share in river water. “The Congress did not even lay foundations for the Pranahitha-Chevella project at Tummadihatti, even when Maharashtra was ruled by the Congress. But crores of rupees were spent in the name of mobilisation advances,” KTR said. He added that the CAG mentioned the Rs 52,000-crore corruption in the ‘Jalayagnam’ programme.

Explaining the reason for re-engineering the Pranahitha-Chevella project, KTR said that the project site was changed because of the lack of availability of sufficient water at Tummadihatti.

He said that KLIP was not just Medigadda Barrage alone as projected by the Congress and said that it was a complex multi-stage lift irrigation project with three barrages, 15 reservoirs, 21 pumphouses, 203-km-long tunnels, 1,531-km-long canals, 98-km -long pressure mains, 141 TMC storage capacity, lift to 530 metre and consumption of 240 TMC.

He pointed out that the BRS Government secured 400 different permissions, despite the obstacles created by the Congress and completed the KLIP. “Water availability at Tummadihatti is only 16.4 TMC and it is 142 TMC at Medigadda. The KLIP will stabilise 40 lakh acres. The BRS Government did not hesitate on expenditure but completed the project with fervour,” KTR said.

Asking the Congress on the cost-benefit analysis of the projects built by them, the BRS working president said the SRSP could irrigate only 25,000 acres, Nagarjuna Sagar could irrigate 98,000 acres, and Kalwakurthy after three decades irrigated only 13,000 acres.