Hyderabad: Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) President & MP N. Uttam Kumar Reddy demanded a judicial probe into the submergence of the pump house of Mahatma Gandhi Kalwakurthy Lift Irrigation Scheme at Yellur village in Nagarkurnool district in the rising backwaters of Srisailam reservoir.
Addressing a press conference through Zoom App on Saturday, Uttam Kumar Reddy claimed that the submergence led to an explosion of pumps, and the entire pump house was inundated within 20 minutes. He said that the entire incident, resulting in loss of property worth thousands of crores, was a man-made mistake.
Uttam Kumar Reddy said that the tragedy was completely avoidable. He pointed out that an expert committee, constituted by the present government, had submitted a report on 20th June 2016 making several recommendations for the safety of pump houses. However, the State Government ignored the recommendations and carried out underground works of the Palamuru Rangareddy Lift Irrigation Project within a 400-meter radius of the KLIS pump house. He said those explosions led to the submergence of the pump house inundating 10 out of its 14 floors.
The TPCC Chief said that Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao should accept the responsibility for the entire damage as he also holds the Irrigation portfolio. He said that the damage was so enormous that it would hit the water supply to the farmers in that Ayacut. He said that only CM KCR was responsible for this incident and he must apologize for the same.
He said that the irrigation projects in Telangana were not filling with water, but the pockets of TRS leaders were filling with cash from the commission they are getting from the contractors. He alleged that sub-standard and inferior quality works were done in Kaleshwaram, Mid-Maniar, and Konda Pochamma projects and they were getting affected. He said several employees were killed and property worth hundreds of crores was damaged in the fire accident in the Srisailam Power Plant recently. Even before people could forget that incident, the KLIS pump house got submerged due to the negligence of TRS Govt. However, he expressed relief over no loss of life in the incident. “We don’t know how many more people will lose their lives and how much public money will be lost due to the inefficiency of CM KCR,” he asked.
The TPCC Chief demanded that the incident should be probed in a fair and transparent manner. He said a judicial probe should be conducted to identify the causes and punish those responsible for the incident. He also condemned the arrest of Congress leaders who tried to visit the KLIS pump house.
Speaking on the issues, TPCC Working President Ponnam Prabhakar demanded the intervention of the Central Government to probe into the quality of works in the irrigation projects constructed by the TRS regime. He also alleged that both BJP and TRS were secret allies and were enacting dramas. He said if the BJP truly believes that KCR Govt indulged in corruption in irrigation projects, then why it was not pressuring the Central Govt to order an inquiry into those projects.
SOURCE:NSS
