River linking only after meeting Telangana, Andhra needs: Irrigation minister T Harish Rao

HYDERABAD: Irrigation minister T Harish Rao has reiterated Telangana’s stand that the Centre should take up linking of rivers only after the water requirements of both Andhra Pradesh and Telangana states are met.

Participating in a meeting of the National Water Development Agency (NWDA) in Delhi on Monday on linking of rivers, Harish Rao made it clear that his state was not against linking of rivers but it only wanted that the Centre should first ensure that the water requirements of AP and Telangana were met first. “The allocation of Godavari water to Telangana is 954 tmcft and that should be used entirely for Telangana. If there is any surplus water in the Godavari, then it can be allocated to other states,” he said.

With Union water resources minister Nitin Gadkari announcing in the Lok Sabha that the Centre was not according to national project status to any irrigation project in the country after Polavaram, Harish Rao recalled that the Centre was willing to give to 40 per cent grants to irrigation projects. “You bore 40 per cent of the total cost of irrigation projects in Maharashtra. The same facility should be extended to Telangana,” he said and demanded a grant of Rs 20,000 crore for the Kaleshwaram lift irrigation scheme.

DANGERS AVERTED 

Harish Rao said that the entire engineering staff in the irrigation department were put on high alert. “Because of their alertness, two major possible incidents were averted. When a thunderstorm struck Satnala project in Adilabad district, the generator was destroyed. The officials could not operate the gates remotely. At that time, the inflows exceeded the reservoir’s capacity. Then engineers went to the project site on foot and operated the gates manually, thereby averting a major danger.” This timely action saved the lives of 8,000 people. At Kaddam project, one gate was stuck but the officials managed the water flows.