Retired Engineer To File Case In HC Against Kaleshwaram

Claiming that there was no political force behind his approaching the Supreme Court on the Kaleswaram project, retired irrigation engineer Lakshminarayana said that he approached the apex court only to protect the people's houses getting submerged.

Lakshminarayana said that the Supreme Court hadn't dismissed his petition yet. He said that he would also file a petition in the High Court on the project.

He alleged that wrong information was going to the people on the Kaleswaram project and that Irrigation Minister T Harish Rao was speaking like a fool on it. He claimed that though the state government had escalated the project cost estimate from Rs 40,000 crores to Rs 80,000 crores, the project could be completed in just Rs 30,000 crores easily, and that Rao was taking commissions by hiking the estimates in the name of redesigning the project.

The bad thing in the project was that the lifts needed 1,100 mega watts of power costing Rs 1,300 crore per year. He also said that the state would avail itself of 15 tmcft of water at Thummidihetti, and that there was no use in entering into an agreement with Maharashtra.

The state government was also constructing 19 storage reservoirs unnecessarily, he said, and informed that 33 to 44 tmcft of water was enough for the second crop. The government was spending Rs 50,000 per acre to provide water through the project, he said.