Jagan slams CM over water row

Pulivendula(Kadapa): YSR Congress Party president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy lashed out at Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu for depriving the people of Pulivendula their fair or rightful share of water. It may be recalled that there was a simmering water dispute between Pulivendula and Tadipatri regions over the sharing of river water from the Chitravati Balancing Reservoir with Anantapur MP damaging the Pulivendula Balancing Reservoir.

In this connection, the YSR Congress Party chief inspected the Chitravathi Balancing Reservoir and met the officials. He enquired from them as to how much quantity of water was released for Pulivendula mandal in Kadapa and Anantapur district. He questioned the engineers as to how they could give only 2.55 tmc of water, especially when the Chitravati Balancing Reservoir had a total capacity of 10 TMC. Among the total of 2.55 tmc of water, Pulivendula got only 0.55 tmc of water was supplied to Pulivendula, which was not at all sufficient, he lamented.

Jagan wanted to know from the officials whether the 0.55 tmc of water should be used for drinking or irrigation purposes. He said that it was shameful on the part of the Chief Minister to receive felicitations from the farmers, especially when he deprived them of their rightful share. The YSR Congress Party chief came down heavily on Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu and Irrigation Minister Devineni Umamaheshwara Rao for releasing water to irrigate only 12,000 acres of ayacut land, especially when there were 1.50 lakh acres of ayacut land under the Chitravati Reservoir.

He reminded them that the late leader Y S Rajasekhara Reddy allocated Rs 6,800 crore for the Handri-Neeva Sujala Sravanthi project and already spent Rs 6500 crore on it. He said that during the last ten years, the Brahmasagar Reservoir had 12 to 13 tmc of water but after Chandrababu took over as Chief Minister, there was not even a drop of water.