Centre dilly-dallies on granting national status to Kaleshwaram

Hyderabad: It appears that the Central government is in no mood to accord national status to Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project for now citing several loopholes in the execution of the prestigious project of the Telangana State government.

The Centre claims that the project does not meet all parameters set by it to give Kaleshwaram such a status. The State government, on the other hand, is ready with required data to convince the Centre to prove that the irrigation project was constructed by complying with all specifications to get the national status.

Considering the bunch of memoranda submitted by Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao and Ministers and MPs recently, Union Ministry of Jal Shakthi reviewed the status of the Kaleshwaram project and examined whether it deserved national project status.

The ministry officials pointed out that variation in benefit and cost (BC) ratio in the construction of one of the India's biggest lift irrigation scheme needs to be analysed before considering the demand to give the national project status to Kaleshwaram.

The other aspect raised by the ministry is that the project is more dedicated to the stabilisation of the existing ayacut created under river Godavari than creation of new ayacut under the project.

A senior official said that the Union ministry is also analysing the DPR ( Detailed Project Report) of the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme (KLIS).

It was reported that Kaleshwaram scheme was the result of the reengineering of Dr BR Ambedkar Prnahitha – Chevella irrigation scheme and this aspect was also under study by the ministry.

In the wake of reports that the Centre is likely to make a statement on Kaleshwaram in the budget or post budget session of the Parliament, the TS government officials are making efforts to strengthen their argument in support of the national project status to the project which has been taken up at the cost of more than Rs 70,000 crore and the cost may go up to Rs 1 lakh crore before the completion of the entire project works.

The TRS MPs were entrusted the job of pursuing the national project issue with the Central government. The Chief Minister also asked the officials concerned to update him on the development.