All eyes were on senior TRS leader S. Niranjan Reddy and Congress MLA of Kalwakurthy, C. Vamshichand Reddy, when they shared a platform to clarify each other’s charges and counter-charges made in the last few days over implementation of Kalwakurthy lift irrigation scheme in Mahabubnagar district.
Mr. Niranjan Reddy, Vice-Chairman of State Planning Board who lost the last Assembly elections on TRS ticket from Wanaparthy, flatly denied Mr. Vamshichand Reddy’s main contention that the State government deleted 37,742 acres from the ayacut to be irrigated by the lift irrigation scheme in Kalwakurthy and included 25,000 acres in Wanaparthy though it was not initially proposed in the project. This was done by restricting the length of the distributary to 10 km against the original 40 km, the Congress leader said.
Mr. Vamshichand Reddy also charged the government with cutting short the main canal in connivance with the contracting firm well before it serviced the total area of Kalwakurthy. The government made use of engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) norms to bring additional ayacut within the area where the canal was terminated.
Mr. Niranjan Reddy appealed to the MLA not to attach motives as the government was committed to irrigating 62,882 acres in Kalwakurthy by kharif this year. He said Wanaparthy was not included in the detailed project report in 2002 for political reasons though the contours of the area were 60 to 80 meters down.
He regretted that the previous government made a provision of only 25 tmc ft of flood water to irrigate 3.4 lakh acres as envisaged by the DPR. The TRS government revised the water requirement to 40 tmc ft and added 25,000 acres in Wanaparthy.
Mr. Niranjan Reddy urged his Congress counterpart to launch an agitation if the government failed to create additional ayacut beyond the point where the EPC model ended near Kalwakurthy. He also told Mr. Vamshichand Reddy to focus on ensuring that the AP government did not divert flood water from Pothireddypadu head regulator. The TRS leader reminded that the government had released only ₹3 crore to survey land for reservoirs for the project.
