Hyderabad: Telangana Irrigation Experts Look Red Over Central Government for Ignoring State Government’s Pleas to Grant Kaleshwaram Elevator Irrigation Scheme (KLIS) National Status Following Similar Status of Karnataka Upper Bhadra Project ago.
Telangana Prime Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao had earlier written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to give the Kaleshwaram project national status. The then Minister of Irrigation, T Harish Rao, also made representations to the then Union Ministers for Water Resources – Uma Bharathi in 2016 and Nitin Gadkari in 2018 in this regard.
TRS MPs have repeatedly raised the issue inside and outside parliament. While Nitin Gadkari answered a question in Lok Sabha in 2018, he categorically announced that the Central Government has no plans to grant a national status to any project in the country in future.
However, the alleged partial attitude of the Central Government towards the BJP-governed states re-emerged after the Upper Bhadra project was granted national project status. On Friday, the Prime Minister of Karnataka, BS Yediyurappa, tweeted: “Upper Bhadra project gets national project status and will receive 16 125 crs from the government of the Union. I thank Prime Minister @narendramodi ji and Minister of the Union @ gssjodhpur ji for the support of this project which will be a blessing for farmers in the districts of Davanagere, Chitradurga, Tumakuru and Chikkamagaluru. ”
Irrigation experts said the Kaleshwaram project is more qualified for national status than the Upper Bhadra project in all aspects, including the area it will serve. KLIS, one of the largest multi-purpose and multiple lever irrigation schemes in the country, will irrigate more than 37 acres of new and existing ayacut in 21 districts of the newly established Telangana state.
Prime Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao dedicated the project to the country on 21 June 2019, in the presence of the then Prime Minister of Maharashtra Devendra Fadnavis and Andhra Pradesh, Prime Minister YS Jaganmohan Reddy. The water has already reached the Kondapochamma Reservoir in the Siddipet district.
On the other hand, the Upper Bhadra project aims to lift water in the first phase from Tunga to Bhadra and lift water in the second phase from Bhadra reservoir and it to the tunnel near Ajjampura through the to provide gravity in the Tungabhadra lower basin of Krishna. comes from there to irrigate a measure of 5.57 lacquer hectares by micro-irrigation in irrigated areas Chikmagalur, Chitradurga, Tumkur and Davanagere.
Irrigation experts said the center should treat all states equally without any bias. “It’s nothing but politically motivated,” they said.
Vice-Chairman B Vinod Kumar, Telangana State Planning Council, said the Central Water Commission (CWC) approved the Upper Bhadra project and recommended it for national status without considering the concerns of the lower riparian states.
The Upper Bhadra project was conceived in 2000 and administrative approval was granted in 2003 for an estimated cost of 2.800 million. Later, the estimate of the project was revised in 2020 to 21 473 million, of which 16 125 million will be borne by the Center. This project falls into the K-8 Sub Basin of the Krishna Basin. Krishna Water Dispute Tribunal (KWDT-II) awarded nine TMC for the Upper Bhadra project at a 65 percent reliability. But the Karnataka government plans to build the Upper Bhadra project to use 29.9 TMC, far more than its allocation.
In addition, the KWDT-II award was not notified by the Central Government due to the residence order issued by the Supreme Court. While the project was approved, CWC did not inform Telangana of its opinion. It is surprising to note that the CWC approves the project for the case in the Supreme Court and recommends it for national status without taking into account the concerns of the lower riparian states, he said.
Source: Telangana Today