The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : TDP vows to stall hydel project on RDS

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Apr 06, 2005

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

TDP vows to stall hydel project on RDS

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD, APRIL 5. The Telugu Desam Party on Tuesday said the Chief Minister, Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, owed an explanation to farmers of drought-hit Mahabubnagar district on the resumption of work on his relative's hydel project on the Rajolibanda Diversion Scheme (RDS) in Karnataka.

Addressing a press conference, N. Janardhan Reddy, deputy leader of the Telugu Desam Legislature Party, and R. Chandrasekhara Reddy, MP, expressed surprise that Dr. Reddy and the Major Irrigation Minister, Ponnala Lakshmaiah, were silent on it after all their assurances in the Assembly to stop the project. Was it a drama because the Assembly was in session, they questioned.

They alleged that the Chief Minister had sent a wrong signal by raising doubts over stoppage of work by asking "what we do if a person from some other State is allotted the project." He had presumed that people and the Opposition would remain silent. "If it happens, we are not going to keep quiet, we will agitate over it."

Threat to move court

The TDP leaders made it clear that the party would not hesitate to approach court, if work continued there. After all, the RDS was built by the Nizam, 93 per cent of the ayacut was in Andhra Pradesh and the State was spending a lot on its maintenance, they observed.

It was unfortunate that the Major Irrigation Minister had gone to Mahabubnagar, but failed to visit the RDS to see the impact of the project on the ayacut. "He has time to allot tenders to a favoured few but no time to visit a project that affects farmers."

Mr. Chandrasekhara Reddy recalled that even the Union Water Resources Minister, Priyaranjan Das Munshi had admitted that the project affected farmers and that he would ask Karnataka to cancel the permission.

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