hyderabad
BRS MLA and former Minister for Irrigation T. Harish Rao has termed the resolution adopted in the State Assembly on Krishna waters on Monday as the success of Telangana people and BRS. He stated that the government took up the resolution only after their party decided to hold a public meeting at Nalgonda on the issue.
He condemned the charges of Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy against former Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao and denied what the treasury benches attributed to the previous government in the matter of Krishna waters. They spoke mostly lies and half-truths during the presentation, he said.
Mr.Harish Rao clarified that Telangana, in the second Apex Council meeting, did not agree to hand over the Krishna projects to Krishna River Management Board, pointing out that the matter of purview was sub judice and that the previous government sought modification in the gazette notification of July 2021 in case of ongoing projects being labelled as new. It was made clear that projects would not be handed over without protocols and water shares and that the ad hoc arrangement of water sharing would not be agreed upon further.
Instead, it was the present Congress government that had agreed to come up with a concrete plan on handing over 15 outlets within a week after the January 17 meeting and hand over the outlets within a month. He said the government wrote to the Centre only on January 27 after receiving the minutes of the January 17 meeting on January 19, wherein the agreed-up points were mentioned, Mr. Harish Rao pointed out.
Further, he criticised the Congress government for blaming the previous regime on the Rayalaseema Lift Irrigation Project (RLIP) stating that the A.P. government had issued a G.O. on it on May 5, 2020, while the then BRS government had complained about the matter to the Centre on January 29 itself that year and addressed one more letter on May 12 to restrain A.P. from going ahead with the project without appraisal and approval. It was the BRS government that had secured an NGT stay on RLIP.
He pointed out that RLIP was also opposed by Telangana in the second Apex Council meeting in October 2020. On the Pothireddypadu Head Regulator expansion, he said it was done during the previous Congress regime in combined A.P. and most of those from the treasury benches speaking on it had now kept mum back then.
