Harish Rao alleges conspiracy to damage Mallanna Sagar bund

Siddipet: Former Minister T Harish Rao suspected a political conspiracy to damage the Mallanna Sagar bund to portray it as a failed project, similar to what he described as the Congress’s false propaganda over the Medigadda barrage.

Alleging that a contractor had been carrying out blasting dangerously close to the Mallanna Sagar bund for the past two months to build a pool to draw water for the Musi River Development Project, Harish Rao, Dubbak MLA Kotha Prabhakar Reddy and other BRS leaders inspected the site at Tipparam village in Kukunoorpally mandal on Thursday.

After noticing that the blasting was being carried out less than 200 metres from the bund, Rao urged the contractor to show the permissions obtained from the Irrigation Department, police, panchayat and other concerned departments. He alleged that the contractor had no permissions at all.

Questioning the manner in which the blasting was being carried out, Rao said the Irrigation Department permitted blasting only at a distance of 10 times the height of an irrigation project. Since the Mallanna Sagar bund is 40 metres high, he said the blasting should be carried out 400 metres away from it. However, Rao alleged that the blasting was being carried out at distances ranging from 50 metres to 200 metres.

Despite strong opposition from Tipparam sarpanch Badrappa and residents, the former Minister said the blasting continued even though houses located about 750 metres to 1,000 metres away in Tipparam had been damaged. During Rao’s interaction with locals, farmers Shambulingam, Sailu and Balaiah told the BRS leaders that the bund had shaken several times due to tremors caused by the blasting.

The farmers complained that the bund had developed seepage at several places after the blasting. Holding the HMWSSB and the contractor responsible for the work, Rao recalled that the Mallanna Sagar project was built as part of the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme (KLIS) to provide irrigation water to 16.23 lakh acres, besides supplying drinking water to 10 districts and Hyderabad.

The former Minister lashed out at the government and officials for their alleged negligent attitude towards such an important irrigation project. Stating that Tipparam villagers had already filed a petition at the police station against the alleged illegal mining, Rao demanded that the police register an FIR against the agency and that residents whose houses and properties had been damaged be compensated.

He also demanded that Irrigation Minister N Uttam Kumar Reddy constitute an inquiry committee to assess the damage caused to the project’s bund by the blasting. Seeking stern action against those responsible, he demanded that the work be stopped immediately. Otherwise, he said, the BRS would launch protests to force the government to act.