Congress Govt lifted more water from Godavari than the BRS government: Govt Whip Aadi Srinivas

Government Whip Aadi Srinivas refuted the BRS government's claim that they lifted less water from the Godavari compared to the Congress regime. Srinivas stated that during 2014-15 to 2022-23, the BRS government had extracted a total of 86.127 TMC (thousand million cubic feet) of water through the Devadula project, averaging 9.57 TMC annually.

Conversely, the Congress government lifted around 68 TMC in the last three years, a rate 89% higher than the previous administration's average. So far this year, the Congress government has lifted 16.71 TMC, consistent with the previous regime's pattern. Additionally, 8.10 TMC was extracted from the Sitarama Sagar project, bringing the total water lifted downstream of Kaleshwaram to 24.81 TMC.

This water has been utilized for irrigation in Warangal, Nalgonda, and Khammam districts. Srinivas clarified that the Devadula project's pumping capacity is 0.23 TMC per day, meaning it would take approximately four and a half days to extract one TMC. He questioned BRS leader Harish Rao's criticism of the water extraction quantity.

Srinivas also highlighted the condition of the Kaleshwaram project, noting issues with the Medigadda barrage and seepage at Annaram and Sundilla barrages. He argued that demanding water extraction at Medigadda was impractical given these challenges. Srinivas defended the Congress regime's construction of the Ellampalli project, stating it now benefits farmers and could have mitigated current issues if the BRS government had built a barrage at Tummidihatti.

He criticized the previous BRS government for agreeing to an interim water distribution that allocated 512 TMC to Andhra Pradesh and 299 TMC to Telangana from the undivided state's 811 TMC share, and noted that the current Telangana government is demanding 558 TMC.