Advisor to MoJS Sriram Vedire.
Adviser to the Ministry of Jal Shakti (MoJS) Vedire Sriram on Tuesday made a presentation before the Justice P.C. Ghose Commission inquiring into the alleged irregularities in the construction of three barrages of Kaleshwaram project and submitted information on various aspects pertaining to the project.
According to Mr. Sriram he had submitted detailed information on the location of head works (main barrage) of initially planned Pranahita-Chevella project at Tummidihatti, availability of water at 75% dependability there, the reasons cited by the then State government for changing the location to Medigadda, what was the view of Central Water Commission (CWC) and facts about the water availability.
He explained to the Commission that under the guise of non-availability of water by putting the onus wrongly on CWC the then government had re-engineered the project and moved it to a new location, only to serve some unknown interests, and in the process they have put the public interests at risk.
The shifting of location took a huge toll on the State exchequer as the cost has gone up by ₹80,000 crore, but the increase in command area is less than 2 lakh areas — from 16.4 lakh acres of Pranahita-Chevella to 18.25 lakh acres as stated in the detailed project report of Kaleshwaram. The maintenance costs like cost of pumping have also enormously increased to the tune of about ₹11,000 crore a year, he explained.
On the submergence area in Maharashtra in case of construction of barrage at Tummidihatti, he said instead of negotiating with the upstream State and convincing it, the Telangana government had built a barrage with less height so as to avoid land submergence. The government was also unable to lift water from Medigadda barrage as it along with two other barrages were built with many engineering blunders.
Further, most of the infrastructure developed in P-C project spending ₹11,917 crore have not been used in the redesigned project resulting rendering the huge expenditure a waste. On the design aspects, he told the Commission that the CWC would never look into them after a certificate is submitted by the Central Designs Organisation (CDO) of the State during the appraisal process.
He stated that the then State government had failed on many aspects of the Kaleshwaram project, including planning, design, quality control, construction and operation and maintenance. He observed that the project was implemented without performing the appropriate technical investigations property in each of these five verticals — planning to maintenance.
Besides, the measures suggested by the National Dam Safety Authority (NDSA) in its interim report to identify the failed aspects in a scientific manner by doing the detailed technical investigations to know the reality do not appear to have been taken by the present government, he observed.
