Supreme Court stays NGT order on PRLIS

Hyderabad: The Supreme Court's order permitting the Telangana government to construct the Palamuru-Rangareddy Lift Irrigation Scheme (PRLIS) came as a major relief to the government.

The court on Friday stayed the NGT (National Green Tribunal) orders against the project and permitted the government to take up works related to the drinking water supply schemes for the time being.

It may be mentioned here that the NGT had slapped a fine of Rs 500 crore on the TS government on the grounds that the Palamuru lift irrigation scheme was taken up without seeking any environmental clearances from the agencies and violated the prescribed conservation of fauna and flora around the project.

The lift irrigation scheme is on river Krishna to meet the irrigation and drinking water needs of Mahbubnagar, Rangareddy and Nalgonda districts.

State irrigation officials said the works came to a grinding halt ever since the NGT had asked the government to stop the construction activity last year. "The Apex court permitted the state to take up works for drinking water purpose by using up to 7.15 TMC of water.

Soon after the court directions, State Special Chief Secretary to Irrigation Rajath Kumar reviewed the project works with top irrigation engineers and instructed them to go ahead with the works.

Out of six reservoirs, works at Veeranjaneya and KP Laxmidevulapally will be started soon. The works at Anjanagiri, Venkatadri, Kurumurthiraya and Uddandapur will be resumed after consulting the legal experts as the capacity of these reservoirs was above 7.5 TMC. The installation of pump-set works is in progress. The lift scheme will provide irrigation facility to 12.30 lakh acres in the South Telangana districts.