Harish Rao rips apart Union govt on Kaleshwaram national status claims
Harish Rao produced letters written by CM KCR to PM Modi and State government to the Ministry of Water Resources seeking national status for Kaleshwaram project in the past
Hyderabad: Finance Minister T Harish Rao ripped apart the BJP-led union Government over what he termed as “false claims” that there was no proposal from Telangana government seeking national status for Kaleshwaram project and for misleading the Parliament and people of the State. The Minister on Friday produced letters written by Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and State government to the Ministry of Water Resources seeking national status for Kaleshwaram project in the past.
The strong reaction from the Telangana govenment came after union Minister of State for Jal Shakthi, Bisweshwar Tudu told Lok Sabha that Telangana government had not submitted any proposal to the Centre seeking inclusion of Kaleshwaram or Palamuru Rangareddy projects in the National Project scheme. The minister was replying to a question by Mahabubnagar MP Manne Srinivas Reddy on Thursday.
Strongly objecting to the union Minister’s reply, Harish Rao termed it as “false propaganda” as he, as the irrigation minister (earlier) along with the Chief Minsiter K Chandrashekhar Rao had made several representations to the PMO and to the Minister of Water Resources on the same issue. The Minister also refuted Tudu’s observation that the Kaleshwaram did not get all clearances from Central Water Commission and from Technical Advisory Committee of Ministry of Jal Shakthi.
Harish Rao took to twitter to share Kaleshwaram project status of clearances report and maintained that the union Minister had uttered a blatant lie on the floor of the House and was misleading people as well. The Kaleshwaram project was given all clearances by the CWC and also got approvals from Technical advisory committee of Ministry of Jal Shakti. It was only after that the Chief Minister had requested the Prime Minister Narendra Modi to accord national status to the project, but to no avail.
The Finance minister also laid threadbare the union Government’s discrimination towards Telangana. He recalled that when BRS members raised the issue of national project status to Kaleshwaram in Parliament in 2018, the then Water Resources minister Nitin Gadkari told the House that there were no plans to accord national project status to any project in the country. However, the union Government had given national project status to Upper Bhadra Project of Karnataka and Ken-Betwa project of Madhra Pradesh, both states ruled by the BJP, while Telangana request was denied. “It is nothing but political vengeance of BJP government against Telangana,” he said in a series of tweets while clippings of news reports on his meeting with Nitin Gadkari on July 18, 2018.
The CWC approved the Upper Bhadra Project in Karnataka ruled by the BJP when KWDT II award was stayed by the supreme court in 2013. The CWC gave clearances and union govenment gave national project status to the Upper Bhadra project when the whole matter was subjudice. However, Kaleshwaram had everything in clear but national project status was not given inspite of repeated requests by Telangana. “Is it not political vengenance?” he asked in a tweet.
