Hyderabad: Telangana’s Irrigation and Civil Supplies Minister Capt. N. Uttam Kumar Reddy lashed out at BRS leader T. Harish Rao, accusing him of spreading lies about the Kaleshwaram project. He demanded an unconditional apology from Harish Rao and the BRS for misleading the public and causing a permanent financial loss to Telangana through “greed and poor planning”.
In a media statement, Uttam Kumar Reddy exposed the misleading propaganda around the Medigadda barrage—described by the BRS themselves as the lifeline of the Kaleshwaram project. He revealed that in five years, water lifted at Medigadda totaled only 162.368 TMC, according to official data.
The year-wise breakdown was:
- 2019-20: 61.666 TMC
- 2020-21: 31.828 TMC
- 2021-22: 33.971 TMC
- 2022-23: 25.971 TMC
- 2023-24: 8.932 TMC
Uttam Kumar Reddy questioned how BRS claimed to have irrigated 22 lakh acres with just 99 TMC over five years. He pointed out that 63 TMC was released downstream into the sea during floods, leaving only 99 TMC available for irrigation. Subtracting 20 TMC in transmission losses, the usable balance shrank to 80 TMC. From this, reservoirs like Kondapochamma (15 TMC), Mallanna Sagar (10 TMC), and Ranganayaka Sagar (2 TMC) took away another 27 TMC, leaving only 53 TMC effectively available—just 10.6 TMC per year, enough for barely 1,06,000 acres per year, he explained.
He also highlighted the enormous energy burden created by the project, with Medigadda’s pumping operations consuming 569.223 million units of electricity in five years:
- 2019-20: 216.693 MU
- 2020-21: 111.432 MU
- 2021-22: 119.068 MU
- 2022-23: 90.766 MU
- 2023-24: 31.264 MU
Uttam Kumar Reddy lambasted BRS’s engineering failures, citing the July 2022 submergence of Siripuram (Annaram) pump house, the collapse of the breast wall at Medigadda pump house that same year, and the subsequent damage to motors that severely impacted water lifting operations. He noted that only 25 TMC was lifted that year. Further, the Medigadda barrage itself subsided on October 21, 2023, underlining the project’s structural failure.
He reminded the public that barrages are supposed to divert water, citing the example of the Farakka Barrage, built in 1975 on a rock foundation and still standing strong. By contrast, Medigadda, Annaram, and Sundilla barrages—planned and built during the BRS regime—showed massive failures. Uttam Kumar Reddy accused the KCR family of using the Kaleshwaram barrages to divert funds rather than water, calling them direct evidence of the family’s corruption.
“BRS’s wrong decisions and greed for commissions have caused a permanent financial loss to Telangana,” Uttam Kumar Reddy declared, demanding an unconditional apology to the people from KCR and Harish Rao.
Uttam Kumar Reddy also questioned why BRS abandoned the Tummidihatti barrage project despite making agreements with Maharashtra and even organising elephant rallies. He alleged that the real reason was that building Tummidihatti would have given credit to Congress, while BRS wanted the money. From Tummidihatti to Ellampalli, a 100 km open canal had already been built, designed to carry water by gravity. If the Tummidihatti barrage had been completed, water would have flowed naturally for 100 km. Instead, BRS’s Medigadda plan required lifting water 100 km downstream, only to release it back into the sea during floods. “This is not a lift irrigation scheme, it’s a return irrigation scheme,” Uttam said.
He asserted that Sriramsagar, Sripada Yellampalli, Lower Manair, Upper Manair, and Singur reservoirs were all built by the Congress party, not by BRS, and criticised BRS for taking credit. He also pointed out that by the time Telangana state was formed, Rs. 6,156 crore had already been spent on the Pranahita-Chevella project, with that figure rising to Rs. 11,679 crore by 2016.
Uttam Kumar Reddy stressed that the Central Water Commission never stated that water availability was an issue at Tummidihatti, calling that claim a “complete lie” by BRS. Had Tummidihatti been completed at a cost of Rs. 38,000 crore, water would have reached 17 lakh acres of new ayacut from Tummidihatti to Chevella. Instead, BRS shifted to Medigadda and built Kaleshwaram at an inflated cost of Rs. 1 lakh crore, leaving Telangana with a permanent financial burden. “If Tummidihatti had continued, the Rs. 62,000 crore difference could have completed Palamuru-Rangareddy, Kalwakurthy, Nettempadu, Bheema, SLBC, Dindi, Sitarama, Devadula, and Indiramma Flood Flow Canal projects,” he said.
Uttam Kumar Reddy also highlighted that because of BRS’s greed, Telangana now has to pay Rs. 16,000 crore in annual interest on irrigation sector loans. He criticised the electricity costs of the Kaleshwaram project, estimating it at Rs. 10,000 crore per year if all pumps ran at full capacity, whereas with Tummidihatti, the cost would have been just Rs. 1,000 crore. “Your wrong decisions and greed have permanently burdened Telangana with a financial liability,” Uttam concluded.
