Former Minister G. Jagadish Reddy speaking at a public meeting in Nalgonda on Tuesday.
Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leader and former Minister S. Niranjan Reddy said the erstwhile Mahabubnagar district would have benefited the most with Krishna water, had Telangana (Hyderabad State) not merged with Andhra forcibly and the region’s rightful share was diverted to Seemandhra regions in combined AP.
Speaking at a BRS public meeting held in Nalgonda on Tuesday, he said the rulers of the combined AP had constructed the original Nandikonda project at a location upstream of the present Nagarjunasagar project and the areas in Telangana would have benefited the most. But, Nagarjunasagar downstream of the location where Nandikonda was planned was taken up to benefit mostly the Andhra region at the cost of the much larger catchment area and population in Telangana.
Similarly, Jurala was initially planned with a 20 tmcft capacity as recommended by KWDT-I to undo the injustice done to the region and in lieu of the Tungabhadra project left canal water. However, the combined AP rulers had downsized it to 11 tmcft capacity and further reduced it to only 6.5 tmcft live storage capacity.
Another farmer Minister G. Jagadish Reddy said the BRS government led by K. Chandrasekhar Rao had made Nalgonda overcome drought, hunger deaths and fluoride problem. The district had progressed from producing 3 lakh tonnes of paddy in a year to 40 lakh tonnes with improved irrigation facilities including water from Kaleshwaram project, he noted.
Senior leader K. Keshava Rao, Nama Nageswara Rao, Kadiyam Srihari, Ponnala Lakshmaiah, several MPs, former Ministers, several legislators and party leaders participated in the public meeting.
