Revolt against Upper Bhadra project, NRRS calls ruling party MLAs

Tirupati: Dr Kuncham Venkata Subba Reddy, the president of National Rayalaseema Rashtra Samithi (NRRS), flayed the YSRCP and BJP leaders for their silence on the ongoing Upper Bhadra project in Karnataka. This project will become detrimental to the interests of Rayalaseema region, he added.

Addressing the media at Tirupati Press Club on Thursday, he asked the leaders of the two parties whether they do not need the votes in Rayalaseema area. Explaining about the Upper Bhadra project, he said, 29.50 TMC of water from Tungabhadra reservoir will be given to 5.56 lakh acres ayacut in the first phase. The Central government has allocated Rs 5,300 crore for this project in its budget. Already, Rayalaseema districts have been facing water scarcity due to shortage of water in Tungabhadra reservoir. With this new project, 7.94 lakh acres will be seriously affected in the three districts of Rayalaseema, he pointed out.

Dr Venkata Subba Reddy recalled that Karnataka was saying that through the modernisation of Tunga and Vizianagaram branch canals, 11.5 TMCs and 10 TMCs out of the allocations made by Krishna first tribunal, 2.4 TMCs from Godavari waters through Polavaram and 6 TMCs through small water resources from K8 and K9 basins, which amounts to 29.5 TMCs, will be consumed through Upper Bhadra project.

Henoted that though the AP government was seeing discrepancies in these statistics, the Central Water Commission has issued approvals to the project on which the AP government will soon approach the Supreme Court. Subba Reddy said that the ruling party MLAs from the region should come out and revolt against the Upper Bhadra project and stall it in the best interests of the region.