KTR announces ‘Chalo Medigadda’ prog on March 1

Hyderabad: The BRS working president and former minister K T Rama Rao on Tuesday announced “ Chalo Medigadda” programme on March 1. He said there was a larger conspiracy behind the deliberate delay in repair of damaged piers of the Medigadda barrage and other components of the multi-stage Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme (KLIS).

Addressing a news conference at Telangana Bhavan, he said the party would organise the protest programme to expose the sinister designs of the Revanth Reddy government behind its vicious campaign against the project which served the State as its lifeline.

The government had conspired to abandon the project by ignoring the urgent need for immediate repair to the sunken three piers. It was also not addressing the seepage issues noticed in the Annaram barrage so that it would get washed away during the monsoon.

The government was delaying the repairs as part of a hidden agenda to trivialise the benefits delivered by the project that was designed to make the water-starved regions of the State richer by 240 tmcft drawn from the Godavari. The government had purposefully shelved the project expansion plans intended to add one more tmcft (a day) to the water drawl capacity.

All the party’s elected representatives, including MPs, MLAs, MLCs and former legislators, will be taken to the project as art of the ‘Chalo Medigadda’ programme. Other components of the KLIP, including the new reservoirs and massive structures that were built as part of the project, would be reached out to in next two or three spells. Media teams will also be taken to the project as part of the mission.

He said the immediate need was to put up a coffer dam shielding the sagging structure and resume pumping of water by operating at least a single pump at Medigadda so that irrigation support was extended to the Kharif ayacut of the project.

The rehabilitation of Medigadda will not take more than a couple of months if the government has a sincere approach to the task on hand. People will not justify it if the Congress leadership wants to wreak vengeance on the farming community under the project for sake of animosity it has been harbouring against the BRS leadership, KTR warned.