Irrigation Minister T. Harish Rao sought the support of NRIs in ‘Mission Kakatiya’ and promised a transparent process to spend the funds donated by them apart from naming the lakes after the adopters.
“We are even willing to open a bank account for the donations to flow in. There will be transparency and accountability in the whole process by way of updating the information with pictures regularly on the government website,” he said, while participating in a phone-in with 715 NRIs from countries like the USA, UK, Australia, Singapore and Gulf regions, facilitated by the TDF-USA.
He said Telangana lakes suffered under the united AP rule and Mission Kakatiya was being taken up to revive around 45,000 lakes with a huge budget of Rs. 20,000 crore. Once they are restored, they can store around 260 tmcft water and irrigate up to 25 lakh hectares in the State.
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“No project aimed at reconstruction of Telangana is complete without the participation of NRIs. We welcome you with both hands to be part of this grand project. There is no hard and fast rule as to how much money you should contribute towards this,” he told the participants.
He said the government had sought the support of the World Bank, Japan International Cooperation Agency and NABARD and has received favourable responses from them. On confrontation with the neighbouring States, he said they were open to dialogue with all the States without compromising on the fair share of resources.
K.V. Ramanachary, Advisor to the Government coordinated. Vishveshwar Kalavala, TDF-USA president and Santosh Kakulavaram, TDF media chair who coordinated the event from the USA, said in a statement that many in the TDF ranks came forward to donate and adopt lakes after the call conference.
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