Hyderabad: Irrigation minister N Uttam Kumar on Sunday said that the Telangana farmers cultivated a record amount of paddy in the recent Yasangi, which is unprecedented in India’s history. He accused BRS MLA T. Harish Rao of making false statements on paddy cultivation and production, irrigation projects and water supply
He said the BRS had peddled such lies even before the Yasangi season. Even then, they made devious attempts to create panic among the farmers.
In the last monsoon, farmers cultivated paddy on 66.7 lakh acres and harvested 153.5 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) of paddy. “If paddy is cultivated on 60 lakh acres in Yasangi, then Telangana farmers have the credit of achieving a yield of 130 lakh metric tonnes of paddy. The record of achieving 283 lakh metric tonnes of paddy in a single year was achieved under the leadership of Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy during the Congress government.”
“The Medigadda barrage has collapsed due to the incompetence, negligence and mismanagement of the BRS. The Annaram and Sundilla barrages are also still in a dangerous condition. The National Dam Safety Authority has found fault with the construction of Medigadda using secant files technology. Like Medigadda, the Annaram and Sundilla barrages have become dangerous because they were built using the same secant files foundation technology,” the minister alleged.
Uttam Kumar Reddy said that the Kalwakurthy pumps are switched on every year at the end of July or on the first of August to provide water to the monsoon crops. The same system will be implemented this time also. “Farmers need not doubt that Kalwakurthy lifts were switched on on August 11 in 2019, August 31 in 2020, August 15 in 2021, July 13 in 2022, and August 6 in 2023. Last year, we switched on on July 27.”
The minister said all the irrigation projects and ayacut plans will be prepared based on the decisions taken in the State Level Committee for Integrated Water Planning and Management meeting to be held on July 11.
He also said that all the conspiracies of the then BRS government behind the illegal transfer of Krishna waters to Andhra Pradesh have already been exposed. During their rule, the capacity of Pothireddypadu was more than doubled to 88,000 cusecs. BRS secretly supported the conspiracy to divert about eight to ten TMCs of water per day from Rayalaseema Lift Scheme and Muchumarri to Andhra Pradesh.
