Hyderabad, Oct 22 (IANS): Telangana Congress has demanded an inquiry by a sitting judge into the sinking of some pillars of the Medigadda barrage of the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project (KLIP)
Alleging that the state government was trying to hush-up the incident by stopping media persons and opposition leaders going for inspection, Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president A. Revanth Reddy urged Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan to order an inquiry.
He told reporters in Delhi that poor quality of the construction work led to the incident. He demanded that Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, who claims to have re-designed the project, should own up the responsibility.
Revanth Reddy said the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) should also probe into the allegations of corruption in the Kaleshwaram project. He alleged that the corrupt practices were exposed with the sinking of pillars of the mega project constructed at a cost of Rs 1.20 lakh crore.
The TPCC chief demanded that ministers K.T. Rama Rao and T. Harish Rao should go to the barrage. He said a delegation of the Congress would also join to see and analyse the damage.
He said the minister should explain what went wrong if they believed quality was not compromised during the project construction.
Alleging that KCR’s family had made money in the project, Revanth Reddy said Congress MP Rahul Gandhi had reiterated this during his recent visit to Telangana.
He mocked Chief Minister KCR for claiming it to be the world’s largest lift irrigation project. He said within a few years pumps worth hundreds of crores were submerged and now the pillars were sinking.
Revanth Reddy also demanded that Home Minister Amit Shah and Tourism Minister G. Kishan Reddy, who had been accusing KCR of turning Kaleshwaram into an ATM for himself, should visit the project immediately and inspect the poor quality of the work.
He said BJP would not respond as it was working with the BRS.
Earlier, Congress MLA D. Sridhar Babu was stopped when he was on his way to the barrage in Jayashankar Bhupalpally district.