Kaleshwaram project ‘irregularities': KCR, nephew among Telangana ex-ministers summoned by probe panel
The Justice P C Ghose commission, investigating alleged irregularities in the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project in Telangana, has sent a notice to former chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao, asking him to appear before it on June 5.
Notices were also served to the former CM's nephew Harish Rao, a former irrigation minister; and Etela Rajender, a former finance minister in KCR's Bharat Rashtra Samithi government, who later joined the BJP. While Harish Rao was asked to appear before the commission on June 6, Rajender was summoned on June 9.
The Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project (KLIP) on the Godavari river in Telangana's Jayashankar Bhupalpally district, across the border from Maharashtra, was designed to supply water for irrigation, as well as for industrial and domestic use over a swath of northern Telangana.
Work on the project began in June 2019 when the BRS was in power and KCR was chief minister. The BRS was in power in the state between 2014 and 2023.
In February 2024, four months after an incident of flooding at the biggest of the project barrages, the current Congress-run state government asked the National Dam Safety Authority (NDSA), a statutory body set up under the National Dam Safety Act, for a thorough inspection. The Congress has said that as per the NDSA report, some irregularities have been found in the construction of some of the barrages of the project.
Responding to the commission's notice, BRS leader and KCR's daughter K Kavitha wrote on X, 'The notices to KCR garu over the Kaleshwaram project are part of a calculated political conspiracy to tarnish the image of a true people's leader. Kaleshwaram was built for the welfare of farmers and future generations, not for politics. Today, this inefficient Congress government is undoing the very progress Telangana fought for. KCR garu, who has devoted his life to Telangana, transforming barren lands into fields of prosperity, is now being targeted by a visionless regime. No vindictive government can diminish his legacy. The truth will prevail, and history will remember who stood for the people and who tried to bring them down.'
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