Mallanna Sagar Needless, Says Telangana Engineer

Even as the State government stayed firm on the construction of 22 reservoirs for pushing ahead its irrigation projects for distributing waters to crops this season in the Medak, Nizamabad and Karimnagar districts despite the Opposition crying foul, an irrigation expert today opposed the constructions, including Mallanna Sagar.

Former Engineer-in-Chief of the irrigation department T Hanumantha Rao told mediapersons that the present project of 160 TMC capacity at Kaleshwaram was enough to distribute waters through lift irrigation from the existing water points for four months, and that there was no need for constructing the Mallanna Sagar or other proposed reservoirs.

The government could instead construct reservoirs in the Mahabubnagar and Nalgonda districts for the Palamur and Dindi lift irrigation projects as they had water capacity for just two months against the required four months for irrigation for the season and for drinking, he said.

According to estimates, the cost of the 22 reservoirs will be a whopping Rs 33,000 crores, including Rs 11,000 crores for the 50 TMC Mallanna Sagar alone. Rao said that the setting up of extra pumps for emergency and present needs to lift waters would cost only Rs 1,250 crores. Thus the government could avoid the planned spending of huge money on new reservoirs in North Telangana which would submerge 14 villages and affect many farmlands.

Projects without the support of reservoirs had proven successful, and these included the Jawaharlal Nehru project being implemented across the nation and a lift irrigation project in Russia back in 1974, he said.

When asked, Rao said that he had already made all this clear to the State government, which was to take a final call on the issue.