Telangana BJP Seeks Amendments To Bill On Polavaram

Telangana BJP President G Kishan Reddy on Monday requested the Centre to make certain amendments to the Bill on the Polavaram Project.

In a letter written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Kishan Reddy said that although the Telangana BJP was not against the construction of the Polavaram Project, it wanted some changes in the Bill which would be in the interests of both AP and Telangana.

"The present design of the Polavaram Project permanently curbs the inland water transportation to land-locked Telangana State. If the project design is tweaked a little, Telangana as well Maharastra are going to benefit from the inland water transportation of Sea Going Vessels from Bay of Bengal on the Godavari river. This will boost the economy of the State, with manufacturing industries, tourism and shipping industries cropping up all along the Godavari, giving direct and indirect employment to about 1 crore people," Reddy said.

Reddy said that the State BJP had presented this plan of inland water navigation on the Godavari to Nitin Gadkari, who had in principle agreed to it and promised to sympathetically consider it.

"But for this to become a reality, we need to change in the design of Polavaram project without in any way affecting the benefits of this project. Such alternative designs have already been made available by experts, and can be considered," he said.

The Telangana BJP President also objected to the ordinance promulgated by the President of India transferring 7 mandals belonging to the Khammam district of Telangana into Andhra Pradesh.

"The reason mentioned was that the land in these mandals is needed for rehabilitating the people being displaced under this project. But the fact is that since this project is being taken up as a National Project, all the rehabilitation measures will be undertaken by the Central Government. So these mandals can be taken under the control of the Central Government until the rehabilitation measures are undertaken, and then these mandals can be transferred back to Telangana. There is no need to transfer this land to AP, as the responsibility for the project is of the Central Government," he said.

All the village "gram sabhas" in these 7 mandals had passed resolutions to remain in Telangana, and massive agitations were going on protesting the transfer of their land to AP. Most of the inhabitants in these 7 mandals were poor tribals who were totally distraught over this issue, he said.

Kishan Reddy said that if these 7 mandals were transferred to AP, then Telangana would lose the 460 MW Sileru Power Project, which is the only Hydro power project that generates hydro power all around the year. The Telangana region in the then united state had 56% of the power utilization as most of the farmers in Telangana used borewells for crops since they did not have surface water availability. Now Telangana is already power stressed, and could not afford to lose this hydro power project for the Polavaram Project, he said. (INN)