Mallanna Sagar Not Needed For Irrigation: Congress

Congress leader and the Chairman of the Forum For Utilization Of Godavari Waters Marri Shashidhar Reddy noted that the proposed Mallanna Sagar reservoir was unnecessary as there were simpler solutions to pump water for the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project.

In the wake of the opposition to the project from the farmers of Kishtapur, the Congress member, accompanied by professor K Purushotham Reddy, Dr Indrasena Reddy and G Niranjan, visited the Jawaharlal Nehru Lift Irrigation Project Phase-II in the Jhajjar district of Haryana on July 13 to observe the techniques that that project's engineers had incorporated to pump water for lift irrigation without using any reservoirs.

"Many experts in this field who we had spoken to earlier, including the former irrigation consultant to the United Nations T. Hanumanth Rao and those from the Telangana Retired Engineers' Forum, had stated, based on an engineering standpoint, that there was no need to construct the Mallanna Sagar or the Pamulaparthi reservoirs as simpler techniques could be employed. Some of the experts have also estimated savings of Rs. 25,000 crores if the reservoir were replaced with a sump or an intake well," he said.

Citing the example of the success of the Haryana project, he pointed out that there was no justification for forcibly acquiring lands from farmers and no need for large barrages for the Mallanna Sagar project since a simpler solution was available.

"We have some serious reservations regarding this issue. We thought that it would be better to do a case study of the Jawaharlal Nehru Lift Irrigation Project in Haryana to gain knowledge on the engineering solutions and practises that were implemented. We will be discussing our findings with the experts in this field after we return to Hyderabad. We will announce our final stand on this issue on July 16," he said.

He also said that he would be visiting Kishtapur soon along with some of the experts to look into other aspects of reservoir safety which had never been discussed by the ruling government so far.