Move seen as a step to avoid any dispute with Maharashtra

The Government of Telangana appears to have come to a conclusion on changing both the design and nomenclature of the Pranahita-Chevella project, if Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s opinion at a review meeting on irrigation projects held on Friday is any indication.

He suggested the name of Kaleshwaram, a place in Karimnagar district where river Pranahita confluences with Godavari, to the project and constructing barrage there to lift the intended 165 TMC of water so that it would not have any inter-State dispute with Maharashtra. In the existing design, a barrage has been proposed at Tummidi-Hetti villages in Telangana-Maharashtra.

Maharashtra has been objecting to the 152-meter full reservoir level of the barrage proposed by the combined Andhra Pradesh Government (now Telangana) stating that it would submerge a large chunk of land (about 2,000 acres) in its territory.

It has not been agreeing to the offer of high compensation made by the Telangana Government on the premises that it had promised the people of the area that it would not accept the FRL of 152 meters. The Telangana Chief Minister, particularly after talks with his Maharashtra counterpart in Mumbai recently, has been insisting on changing the design of the project stating that another feasible alternative design was possible. He is of the opinion that the cost of construction to lift water from Tummidi-Hetti to Yellampalli reservoir, a distance of 116-km, was Rs.18,800 crore while the alternative barrage would bring down the distance to 70-km and the cost to about Rs.11,000 crore in addition to avoiding inter-State dispute with Maharashtra.

In the review meeting, the Chief Minister said designs of irrigation projects of Telangana prepared in combined AP had a conspiracy to keeping them incomplete with inter-State disputes and Pranahita-Chevella was the best example.

Construction of a barrage at Kaleshwaram linking Pranahita and Godavari would avoid all sorts of disputes with Maharashtra, he noted.

A team of retired irrigation engineers would be sent on aerial survey next week to study the projects proposed on Krishna and Godavari rivers, the Chief Minister said adding that separate Rehabilitation and Resettlement Commissioners would be appointed for the projects in the two basins.