‘Truth will come out’ – KTR after former chief minister KCR appears before Kaleshwaram commission

Speaking at the BRK Bhavan, which was surrounded by KCR’s party workers, BRS working president and KCR’s son K T Rama Rao said: “There are about 100 components in the Kaleshwaram project and the mishap happened at two barrages of the project. The truth will come out after KCR’s deposition and Telangana people will give a befitting reply to this harassment at the right time…This is merely a smear campaign by Congress and BJP”. He added that even after 100 births, “A Revanth Reddy will not be able to measure up to KCR who could envision and implement the massive Kaleshwaram project”.

The KLIP on the Godavari river in Telangana’s Jayashankar Bhupalpally district across the border from Maharashtra was to supply water for irrigation, industrial, and domestic uses in northern Telangana. The vast bulk of water for the project — 195 TMC — was to come from the Medigadda Barrage. Twenty TMC was to come from the Sripada Yellampalli project, and another 25 TMC would be groundwater.

The Kaleshwaram project was inaugurated in June 2019. On October 21, 2023, one of the pillars — No. 20 of block 7 — of the Medigadda Barrage sank, which led to flooding.  The commission was set up in the aftermath of this incident.

KCR was the chief minister of Telangana at the time of the incident.

Before KCR, Eatela Rajender who was former finance minister and Harish Rao, former minister for irrigation had deposed before the commission. Rajender who is now a BJP MP had later said that the commission had quizzed him over the financial decisions in relation to KLIP.

He said: “I informed the commission that the Kaleshwaram project would not have materialised without the Cabinet sub-committee which recommended redesigning several components”. The documents that supported his statements will be made public soon, he said.

Later, when Harish Rao appeared before the commission, he said that shifting of KLIP “intake point from Tummidi Hatti to Medigadda” was made necessary because of “continual opposition from Maharashtra, water shortage and ecological concerns” and not “because of unscrupulous reasons as is alleged by the Congress government”.

After the October 2023 mishap, a National Dam Safety Authority (NDSA) team examined the sunken pillar and held an appraisal meeting with L&T, the company executing the project. On February 13, 2024, the Congress-led Telangana government asked the NDSA to carry out a “thorough inspection of the design and construction of the three barrages” of the project. The NDSA visited all three barrages for inspections and study the following month.

On April 29 this year, the state government announced that the NDSA had found a “lack of proper geo-technical investigations, design deficiencies, construction defects, failure of modelling studies, structural distress, absence of robust quality control, operation and maintenance failures, [and that] dam safety aspects [had been] ignored”. “The committee report highlighted significant structural distress across the three barrages,” the government said. “The Medigadda barrage”, the report said, “suffered from severe settlement and cracking of piers in Block-7 with notable tilting”. Two other barrages, Annaram and Sundilla, too “exhibited similar patterns of seepage or piping distress”.

The PC Ghosh commission is also looking into the alleged inundation of the barrages, the NSDC report and statements of prominent leaders.