Sridhar Deshpande’s books on Kaleshwaram, irrigation make an attempt to reveal facts: Harish Rao

BRS leader T. Harish Rao and others felicitating author of books on Kaleshwaram project and retired engineer Sridhar Rao Deshpande in Hyderabad on Friday night.
| Photo Credit: By Arrangement

HYDERABAD

Former minister for irrigation and Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leader T. Harish Rao has observed that two books authored by retired irrigation engineer Sridhar Rao Deshpande make an attempt to set the record straight on the large-scale misinformation campaign being run against Kaleshwaram Project by the Congress government.

Speaking after releasing two books in Telugu – “Kaleshwaram Project: Questions – Criticisms – Distortions – Clarifications” and “A Decade of Telangana’s Journey in Irrigation” here on Friday night, along with another former minister S. Niranjan Reddy, former chairman of the Water Resources Development Corporation V. Prakash and others, he said that there was a need to place facts before people at a time when falsehoods were being propagated about Kaleshwaram.

Mr. Harish Rao stated that the author had made a sincere attempt to dispel misinformation about Kaleshwaram along with documentary support point-by-point from availability of water at Tummidihatti and Medigadda to water storage facility in all three barrages. He accused the Congress Government of deliberately maligning Kaleshwaram purely for political gains and also to cover up its failures to protect State’s interests in the matter of Krishna and Godavari waters.

“At a time when lies are being dressed up and paraded as truth, it takes courage and conviction to publish such fact-based books,” Mr. Harish Rao said, adding that they also act as an answer to the Congress party’s misinformation campaign as they contain facts, statistics, documents and data.

He urged intellectuals, employees and youth of Telangana to read the books and take the facts deep into people.

Mr. Niranjan Reddy stressed the need to take the facts to people at a time when Andhra Pradesh had intensified efforts with aggression to divert more Krishna and Godavari water through new systems to outside the basin areas when the in-basin areas of Telangana were still longing for water for irrigation needs.