First time in Independent India Telangana government has transformed Assembly into a group learning centre. Faced with severe criticism that the chef minister K Chandrasekhar Rao had resorted to redesigning of the Projects in the state planned during Congress regime ‘only with selfish motives’ the CM today gave a power point presentation to explain the rationale behind his plan. The is,according to the CM, meant to create awareness among the MLAs of all parties, especially his critics in Congress and TDP. But the Congress and TDP stayed away from the presentation.
A large screen is erected in the House for presentations. He used the google maps to drive home his message on the redesigning of the irrigation project across the state. He said united Andhra Pradesh deliberately worked against the interests of Telangana. The strategy perused was to allow all proposed projects locked up in inter-state dispute that would never be settled. Or plan to take the projects through the wild life sanctuaries and eco zones. This clearly shows that the rulers of united Andhra Pradesh were not interested in grounding of the project. Even though there was no scope for the completion of the project, they hiked the project cost and bill were cleared to benefit the contractors, he said and cited the Rajiv Sagar as the example for this. These projects could never be completed without redesigning it, he said.
Due to the opportunity provided by the Andhra Pradesh ruler’s strategy, Maharashtra exploited the Godavari water to the hilt by constructing about 400 barrages on Godavari . “In the upper reaches of Penganga alone 31 barrages have been built with a capacity of 80 TMC to 100 TMC and another 9 are under construction. Unless these barrages are filled, Telangana won’t get water in down reaches,” he said. ” Take any river in Telangana, we have Maharashtra and Karnataka in the upper reaches. They took advantage of being in upper reaches, they built innumerable projects due to lack of imagination on the part of the United Andhra rulers,” the CM said.
“There is no way that Maharashtra would allow the water downstream unless all its barrages are filled,” the CM added. Stating that the Telangana was suffering because of these barrages, he said, SRSP and Singur were the worst causalities.
“The state can’t afford to waste the time in fighting inter-state disputes and deny water to the people. We are committed to give water to more than a crore acres. Telangana should no longer depend on rain waters,” he said and defended the redesigning of the projects.
Regarding Devadula project, taken up at a cost of Rs 8000 crore, the CM said, the pump house was built in such a way that it never gets water from the river. ” Though 6.20 lakh acre irrigation was planned under the project, the pump house doesn’t get water. After protest, a check dam was planned at Kantanapalli village. But the project created an interstate dispute with Chhattisgarh because of submergence. Unless the project redesigned so as not to cause the submergence in Chhattisgarh and Kantanapalli adivasi lands Devadula would not yield any benefit. By redesigning the project, we can avoid the submergence both in Chhattisgarh and Telangana. This is the rationale behind the redesigning of the projects,” the CM told his critics in Assembly.
Showing the incomplete projects and explaining the reasons for the non-completion with help of Google Maps,the CM said, every project in the state had got caught up either in interstate dispute or ecological controversies. ” These projects will never see completion in the present form because of the disputes and controversies. If we depend on these projects, Telangana farmers and people would never get water have to die without water. There is no solution in sight for all the projects like Devadual and SLBC. Doesn’t this warrant alternative plans to resolve the perennial water problem of the state,” he asked.
