The Minister expresses happiness over Centre’s decision to give top priority to irrigation projects in the country
Hyderabad: Expressing happiness over the Central government’s statement that it would give top priority to irrigation projects in the country, Telangana State Irrigation Minister T Harish Rao said the Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao had taken up redesign of projects in the State to provide water to one crore acres keeping severe drought conditions in the State in view.
On Wednesday, Harish Rao appealed to the Centre once again to provide national status to the Kaleswaram Project, which is important and provides irrigation water to all north Telangana districts. Harish said that the then Central government provided national status to the Polavaram project, which was located in Andhra Pradesh State, in the Andhra Pradesh Re-organisation Act.
But the same government failed to provide such facility to the newly formed Telangana State showing reason that there were interstate disputes regarding Telangana projects. After assuming the office, Chandrashekar Rao resolved interstate disputes with regard to irrigation projects. The Telangana government entered into an agreement with the Maharashtra government on five projects including Kaleswaram project.
In the process, the Telangana government urged the Centre to provide national status to the Kaleswaram Project, Harish said. He said Chandrashekar Rao too addressed a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on behalf of the Telangana government urging the Centre to provide national status to Kaleswaram Project.
“I too urged the Union Water Resources Minister Uma Bharathi to confer national status to the Kaleswaram Project by meeting her personally,” he said. Harish demanded that the Centre provide national status to the Kaleswaram project by considering it as an urgent case and urged the Centre to allot huge funds to the Mission Kakatiya, which was aimed at revival of tanks.
Thanking Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis for giving green signal to the projects to be constructed on the Godavari, Pranahitha and Penganga rivers, Harish assured the farmers of Telangana that the Telangana Rashtra Samithi government would complete the projects speedily and provide irrigation water to them.
