The Centre has been apparently sitting over the Telangana government’s request to accord national project status to Pranahita-Chevella lift irrigation scheme for the last six months, as it has been under the impression that it involved inter-State dispute with Andhra Pradesh.
There was no progress whatsoever on Telangana’s plea, including the Centre seeking necessary reports from the departments concerned. The fact that AP was weighing heavily over the Centre’s mind came to light recently when Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao called on Union Water Resources Minister Uma Bharati on the issue.
Highly placed sources stated that the Union Minister had told the Chief Minister that the Centre was going slow on the issue since it involved an inter-State dispute with AP. Bemused with the Union Minister’s reaction the Chief Minister was understood to have explained that Pranahita-Chevella project had nothing to do with AP and an agreement was signed by the Chief Ministers of combined AP and Maharashtra over small extent of submergence in Maharashtra already.
Then the Union Minister was learnt to have offered to convene a meeting on the project by the Central Water Commission (CWC) at the earliest. The Union Minister’s doubts over the requirement of power for the lift irrigation project were also cleared stating that it would not be a problem as the State government would enter into long-term power purchase agreements for the purpose and the project cost would also include its operations and maintenance overhead for 15 years.
Sources stated that getting environmental clearance from the Ministry of Tribal Affairs was not a major issue since the project would not affect either forests or people on a large-scale. Besides, public hearings in two districts of Maharashtra were yet to be conducted.
Meet next weekMeanwhile, the CWC is likely to conduct a meeting on Pranahita-Chevella project on December 17 or 18 in Delhi to discuss about the pending clearances.
