BRS avoided Tummidihatti as per CWC recommendations on water availability: Harish Rao

Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) Deputy Floor Leader T. Harish Rao said the then Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao held several rounds of discussions with Maharashtra on the Tummidihatti barrage in 2014 and 2015, but the Central Water Commission (CWC) questioned the project’s availability and demanded 160,000 cubic million feet. alternatives.

This led the previous government to go ahead with the Kaleshwaram project, for which it claimed the necessary clearances had been obtained to tap 240 tmcft of water. “If the government wants to build Tummidihatti, we have no objection. But it should fix Medigadda immediately and turn on the Kannepally pumps,” he said.

Addressing a press conference here, he demanded that the Congress government release a white paper detailing the number of days and hours for which the engines at the Devadula and Kalvakurthy irrigation schemes were running, alleging that the inability to lift available water worsened the drought situation in Telangana. He alleged that only two of the five engines at Kalvakurthy were running for 12 hours straight and questioned why the government did not lift water from Devadula to meet the irrigation requirements of Warangal and parts of Karimnagar districts.

“Publish a white paper that shows when water was available, how many engines were run, how many hours and how much water was lifted,” he said. He claimed that the drought could have been avoided if the Devadula system had worked properly. He also alleged that the retired engineers who proposed to turn on the Kannepally pumps to draw water through the Kaleshwaram project faced disciplinary action and imprisonment. Operating the pumps, he argued, could have helped solve the water shortage in north Telangana.

Published – 26 Oct 2026 22:05 IST