Decode Politics: Telangana ‘scams’ used by Congress, BJP to gun for BRS

Corruption has become a key Opposition plank in its electioneering </strong&gt;against the BRS dispensation. Here is a look at some of the major alleged scams which the Congress and the BJP are using to target the KCR government.

Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project

Considered as KCR’s pet project worth Rs 80,000 crore, the Kaleshwaram project ran into troubled waters on October 21 when several piers of the Medigadda barrage in Jayashankar Bhupalpally district were submerged in the Godavari river.

Earlier this month, in what seemed like further embarrassment for the BRS government, the National Dam Safety Authority (NDSA) slammed the state government over the incident. The report, which assessed the extent of damage to the piers, said the whole project would need to be rebuilt.

Seizing on the issue in the run-up to the polls, the BJP and Congress have hit out at the BRS government, alleging corruption and design flaws in the project. Union Home Minister Amit Shah, while addressing public meetings, has charged that the project has served as an ATM for KCR. He said the damage to the barrage was a result of poor design and lack of quality, stemming from corruption in the construction and execution of the project. Telangana BJP chief G Kishan Reddy claimed the project cost was inflated to facilitate siphoning of funds.

Revanth has called the project a “scam” of the KCR government.

However, KCR and his government have denied all allegations. Regarding the damage at Medigadda, the government said it was not as serious as was being projected and Larsen & Toubro, which built the barrage, has said that it was working on repairing the damage.

The Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme is aimed at providing water for irrigation and drinking purposes to about 45 lakh acres in 20 out of 31 districts in Telangana, apart from Hyderabad and Secunderabad. The first phase of this project was inaugurated by KCR in June 2019.

Miyapur land case

In May 2017, the BRS dispensation landed in a row over the alleged Miyapur land scam after a complaint was lodged by a land registrar in Medchal district.

The complaint threw light on alleged illegal land registrations in Miyapur area of Hyderabad. A subsequent investigation by a special team of the Cyberabad Police revealed that a gang had targeted over 500 acres of land in the capital city.

The lands were mainly owned by descendants of the Paigahs — noble families of the Nizam era, who were gifted large tracts of lands. The gang, led by real estate developer P S Prasad, allegedly fabricated documents and suppressed the actual market value of the land and got them registered in their names.

According to the police report, the registrations were worth Rs 10,000 crore while the market value of the lands in question at the time was Rs 20,000 crore.

The state government should have received over Rs 500 crore as stamp and registration duty with the sale of these lands but got much lesser due to the land being illegally devalued. All the illegal registrations were later traced and cancelled by the state government.

However, the Opposition parties alleged that the BRS leaders were involved in this scam.

The BRS’s Rajya Sabha MP K Keshava Rao was embroiled in the row after it came to light that he and his family members allegedly purchased land illegally in Ibrahimpatnam, on the outskirts of Hyderabad, allegedly through a real estate agent associated with Prasad.

The agent sold 38 acres of land which was registered in the name of Rao’s daughter G Vijayalakshmi, who allegedly purchased the land for Rs 25 lakh while its market value was Rs 4 crore.

Rao has categorically denied all allegations saying that the maximum price per acre in the area at that time was Rs 25,000 and the land was bought at market rate.

The BJP and Congress have also alleged that the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) MLA from Kukatpally, M Krishna Rao, and the Congress MLA from Dornakal, Redya Naik, defected to the BRS after purchasing lands involved in the Miyapur scam.

The Congress even dragged KCR’s daughter and MLC K Kavitha into the matter, claiming that she was attending the government’s review meetings on the Miyapur scam and the investigation.

Mission Kakatiya & Mission Bhagiratha

Mission Kakatiya is the BRS government’s flagship Rs 20,000-crore programme to repair, restore, desilt, and rejuvenate over 45,000 ponds, lakes, tanks, water bodies in the state with an aim to improve the groundwater table, make water available for irrigation to get higher yields, and aid the growth of livestock.

The allegations of irregularities first surfaced in May 2018 after a man from Peddapalli district filed a petition in the Telangana High Court claiming that civil works worth Rs 50 lakh, which were executed in 2015 under MGNREGA, were passed off as works done under Mission Kakatiya in 2018 while Rs 70 lakh was siphoned off by contractors.

It has also been alleged that the contracts for works under the scheme were given to people considered close to members of the ruling party and that payments were allegedly released without the work being completed.

The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) in 2018 had also slammed the Telangana government over the sluggish pace of the project.

Mission Bhagiratha is an ambitious Rs 43,000 crore project, which aims to provide safe drinking water to every household in the state. Under the project, pipelines stretching over 1 lakh km are being laid across the state, water tanks built, and enormous power houses are being set up to pump water from the Godavari and Krishna rivers.

The allegations, including siphoning of funds and releasing payments to contractors without work done, levelled in this project are similar to those which emerged with regard to Mission Kakatiya.

In 2017, then Nalgonda Congress MLA Komatireddy Venkat Reddy had alleged a Rs 10,000 crore scam in the execution of Mission Kakatiya. Reddy had claimed that excess payments to the tune of Rs 10,000 crore were made to contractors from Andhra Pradesh and demanded setting up of a House committee to investigate the “scam”. The demand was rejected by the KCR government.

The BRS government has maintained that both Mission Kakatiya and Mission Bhagiratha are “successful projects” with vast stretches of hinterland now receiving safe drinking water through taps.

Hyderabad ORR

Revanth Reddy, in April this year, accused the KCR government of leasing the Outer Ring Road (ORR) in Hyderabad to a private firm for a lesser-than-normal annual revenue. The TPCC chief claimed toll collections on the ORR increase by 10 per cent annually and must generate a revenue of Rs 30,000 crore for the government but the BRS government had leased it to a company for Rs 7,380 crore.

Revanth charged that the state government initially wanted Rs 10,000 crore but later settled for Rs 8,000 crore and eventually leased ORR for Rs 7,380 crore. “Rs 1,000 crore changed hands so that this lease could be given out for such a small amount,” he had alleged.

On its part, the BJP alleged that the process of awarding contracts was “flawed” as no base price was set for it. State BJP chief and Union Minister G Kishan Reddy demanded that KCR face a CBI probe over these allegations.

However, special chief secretary of the Municipal Administration and Urban Development Department Arvind Kumar countered the charges. He said the entire contracting process – from calling for international tenders to the award of the contract to Maharashtra-based IRB Infrastructure Developers Ltd for Rs 7,380 crore – was carried out in accordance with the prescribed rules.