Harish Rao nails Union Minister's lies on national tag for Kaleshwaram

Hyderabad: Alleging false propaganda by the Union ministers that the State government had not submitted a proposal for national project status to the Kaleshwaram project, Finance Minister T Harish Rao said on Friday that because of the political vengeance, the Centre did not respond to repeated pleas of the government to accord national project status to Kaleshwaram.

The minister took to twitter to counter the reply by Union Minister BishveshwarTudu in Parliament that the State government did not send any proposal for according national project status to Kaleshwaram.

Rao said, "false propaganda by the BJP party's Union minister that Telangana government has not submitted proposal for national project status to Kaleshwaram Project. CM KCR Garu and me as Irrigation minister made several representations to PMO and Minister of Water Resources for national status to Kaleshwaram. As said by BishweswarTuduji on the floor of Parliament, is a blatant lie and misleading the House and people as well," said Rao.

The BRS leader said the Kaleshwaram project had received all clearances from the CWC and also got approval from the technical advisory committee of Ministry of Jal Shakti. Thereafter, KCR requested PM Modi to accord national status to the project. But no action has been initiated by the Government of India, he said.

When the BRS MPs had raised the issue of national project status to Kaleshwaram in 2018 Parliament sessions, former Minister for Water Resource Nitin Gadkari replied that GoI has no plans to accord national project status to any project in future. Contrary to his statement, the Centre accorded national project status to Upper Bhadra Project of Karnataka and Ken-Betwa project of Madhya Pradesh, as both were BJP-ruled States. But the request of government was denied, he alleged.

The Finance minister said it was nothing but political vengeance of the Centre led by BJP against Telangana. The CWC accorded approval to the Upper Bhadra Project when KWDT- II award was stayed by SC in 2013.

The CWC accorded clearances to the Upper Bhadra Project and the Centre also accorded national project status to a project when the case was sub judice.

For Kaleshwaram everything was clear, but no national project status was accorded in spite of repeated requests by Telangana. Is it not political vengeance, asked Rao.