The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : A man, a dream, a name

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Feb 24, 2006

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

A man, a dream, a name

M. Malleswara Rao

K.L. Rao with Indira Gandhi

HYDERABAD: Five years before his death in 1986, K.L. Rao, father of Indian irrigation, next only to Sir Arthur Cotton and Mokshagundam, visited the Pulichintala site under touching circumstances. Aged 80, frail and ailing, he drove straight to Jaggaiahpet from Vijayawada.

Engineers at the guesthouse mistook him for an official seeking to visit the nearby temple. B.V.S. Prakasa Rao, then deputy executive engineer of a Nagarjunasagar canal passing by, took no time realising who the elderly person was. He felt it would be an honour to escort no less a person than Dr K. L. Rao to the temple but the octogenarian said he wanted to visit the site of a modern temple -- the place selected by him some years ago for construction of what is now called Pulichintala proejct.

Chance of a lifetime

Too weak to walk, he had to be carried by the engineers and seated in a Willy's jeep, the only means of transport, which could negotiate the ups and downs and rocky terrain, to reach the site, 30 km away. The engineers had the chance of a lifetime to hear Dr. Rao explain the intricacies of dams in a feeble voice as the rickety jeep crossed a knee-deep stream.

What surprised the engineers was that Dr. Rao stood motionless for a quarter of an hour supported by them on reaching the site, seeing the quietly flowing Krishna, even as they expected that he would ask them to take measurements. "He appeared to reassure himself of something and turned back," Mr. Prakasa Rao, now Commissioner, Godavari Waters, recalls.

Best site

"This is he best site for construction of a dam", he told them pointing to the hill on the other side. Exhausted, he made only gesticulations during the return trip, but it was great education for them. His attachment to Pulichintala was unflinching till he breathed his last.

Pulichintala was Dr. Rao's dream project as a balancing reservoir between Nagarjunasagar and Prakasam Barrage to prevent the Krishna water going waste into the sea. When the Government named the project after him the other day, engineers in the State in general hailed the decision with the common remark "How apt it is!"

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