Appearing Before Probe Panel, KCR Says Engineers Responsible For Change in Kaleshwaram Project Site

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Appearing Before Probe Panel, KCR Says Engineers Responsible For Change in Kaleshwaram Project Site
N. Rahul
21 minutes ago
He reportedly also held the engineers responsible for the Medigadda barrage being used to store and not regulate the flow of water.
Former Telangana chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao arrives at the office of the Justice P.C. Ghose Commission in Hyderabad on June 11, 2025. Photo: PTI.
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Hyderabad: Former Telangana chief minister and Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) president K. Chandrashekar Rao on Wednesday (June 11) appeared before a judicial inquiry commission here probing allegations of corruption and poor quality of construction in the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project on the Godavari River.
The inquiry was conducted in camera at Rao's request as he was unwell and did not wish to be surrounded by mediapersons and others who would have crowded the room.
A judicial commission headed by former Supreme Court Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose had been hearing witnesses for 15 months regarding the reasons for the escalation of the Kaleshwaram project's cost from Rs 82,000 crore to nearly Rs 1.5 lakh crore during the BRS regime.
It has also held hearings regarding the sinking of two piers of the project's principal barrage at Medigadda in Jayashankar Bhupalpally district a month before the party was voted out of power in the November 2023 assembly election.
On Wednesday, Rao walked into the commission's office in response to a notice as a sequel to the hearing of his erstwhile cabinet colleagues T. Harish Rao and Eatala Rajender days earlier.
He was loudly cheered on by party supporters in large numbers both before entering and while leaving the office at the multi-storied Burgula Ramakrishna Rao Bhavan near the state secretariat.
In this image released by @brsparty on June 11, 2025, KCR greets supporters, party leaders and workers after appearing before the Justice P.C. Ghose Commission in Hyderabad. Photo via PTI.
Sources in the commission indicated that Rao was asked to identify those persons who decided to shift the site of the barrage from Tummidihatti in the erstwhile Adilabad district to Medigadda, 20 kilometres downstream the Godavari.
To this, Rao replied that it was purely a technical decision made by an expert team of engineers on the basis of a study conducted by the Water and Power Consultants (WAPCOS) Limited, which is a Union government undertaking.
It is significant that the project was shifted from Tummidihatti on the Pranahita River, a tributary of the Godavari, to Medigadda, where the two rivers meet 20 kilometres downstream of the Kaleshwaram village, after substantial work was carried out at the former site.
The shift not only resulted in the project cost going up from Rs 38,500 crore to Rs 82,000 crore by an initial estimate and later to Rs 1.5 lakh crore, but it also led to the loss of Rs 767 crore to the state exchequer, as many works had become redundant.
Rao explained that the change of site enabled an increase in the amount of irrigable land from 2.47 lakh acres to 16.40 lakh acres with the construction of three barrages and 17 reservoirs.
He also said the project at Tummidihatti had to be abandoned as the government of the adjoining Maharashtra had set up obstacles to the construction of a dam with a height of 152 metres due to submergence issues in its territory that would inundate a sanctuary. Instead, it suggested a height of 148 metres, which was too small for a project of that size.
To another question, Rao was also said to have held the engineers responsible for the storage of water at the Medigadda barrage, though its construction was meant to regulate the flow of water after its pumping to two other barrages at Annaram and Sundilla en route to several reservoirs and a canal network. 'It was not a political decision [with regard to] the storage of water,' he was quoted as saying.
The storage as opposed to the regulation of water at Medigadda was cited as one of the main reasons for the sinking of piers and for seepage at the other two barrages on account of strain on the soil without adequate supporting rafts.
He was said to have elaborated that the shift was made as part of an effort to reengineer existing projects after the Central Water Commission (CWC) and WAPCOS had communicated that there was not enough water available to irrigate the targeted ayacut under the original project at Tummidihatti.
All required clearances from the CWC were obtained. The approval for the shift was given by the cabinet headed by him and later the government issued an order, he said.
Asked to spell out the reason for the government repaying the loans of a special purpose vehicle (SPV) created for the project though the same was the latter's responsibility, Rao said it was due to financial constraints. As the SPV could not generate the targeted revenue through the sale of water, the government stepped in as a guarantor, he said.
He also agreed there was some delay repaying the amount due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Rao explained that the government floated the SPV to raise funds as it had its own financial constraints after the formation of Telangana only a year earlier, that is in 2014.
The project was shifted from Tummidihatti to Medigadda even after substantial work was conducted at the former site. In this photo courtesy X/@KTRBRS, work on a section of the Kaleshwaram project is seen underway.
Harish Rao, Rajender said cabinet cleared Kaleshwaram on group of ministers' recommendation
In an earlier cross-examination, then-irrigation minister Harish Rao on Monday said the reengineering of projects was taken up by the BRS government as the earlier ones proposed by the Congress suffered from inter-state problems and the lack of statutory permissions from the CWC.
The Pranahita project, in particular, was redesigned from a dam carrying water by gravity to a multi-stage lift-irrigation scheme at Medigadda.
The government was compelled to change the source from Tummidihatti since the water availability there was only 44 thousand million cubic (tmc) feet at a dam height of 148 meters, he said. On the other hand, the yield was confirmed by the CWC as 282.3 tmc at Medigadda.
He referred to the obstacles set up by the Congress and BJP governments of Maharashtra, which opposed the projects during their tenures.
Harish Rao also said it was purely a technical decision of engineers to store 141 tmc ft of water in the three barrages together to be able to irrigate 16.40 lakh acres of land. The Kaleshwaram project was approved by the cabinet on the recommendations of a group of ministers (GoM) headed by him which looked at the reengineering of projects, he said.
Then-finance minister Rajender, also a member of the GoM, said on Friday that the project was approved by the cabinet. The GoM had thoroughly studied the report of the expert committee and made the recommendation to the cabinet to go ahead with the revised project, he said.
Rajender said the construction of barrages was taken up through off-budget borrowings though the SPV gave an undertaking to the lending banks to pay from revenue accruals through the sale of water to industries as well as urban and rural drinking water schemes. In practice, there was no collection of money from these sources.
Harish Rao addresses the press after appearing before the Justice P.C. Ghose commission on June 9, 2025. Photo: PTI.
Agriculture minister in Congress cabinet rejects GoM claim
The version recollected by Rajender, who had since joined the BJP and is presently a Lok Sabha MP, was rejected by now-agriculture minister of the Congress government, Tummala Nageswara Rao, who was also a member of the GoM. He called it 'false, misleading and part of a larger conspiracy to deflect from the ongoing investigation'.
He said 'the GoM on which I served never deliberated on the Kaleshwaram project'. The government order sanctioning the project was issued before the committee was even formed, he said. It was never discussed or approved by the cabinet during the BRS regime, 'a fact I can personally attest to', he remarked.
While offering to cooperate with the commission, he said he would submit an affidavit with all relevant documentary evidence to refute Rajender's 'baseless' claims.
Clarifying the GoM's role, Nageswara Rao said it was formed to review only pending projects such as in Devadula, Kantanapalli and Dummugudem, and not Kaleshwaram. He accused the BRS of deliberately twisting facts to derail the investigation and mislead the public.
The commission has examined 115 witnesses till date since its constitution on March 14 last year. Several irrigation engineers, construction firms, quality control and operation and maintenance authorities are among those who appeared before it.
Telangana's incumbent chief secretary K. Ramakrishna Rao, his predecessor Somesh Kumar, then-special chief secretaries of irrigation S.K. Joshi and Rajat Kumar, IAS officials Smita Sabharwal and Vikas Raj, irrigation officials led by engineer-in-chief C. Muralidhar, stakeholders like Sriram Vedire, advisor to the Ministry of Jal Shakti, and MLC M. Kodandaram also deposed before it.
A retired chief engineer of the Kaleshwaram project, N. Venkateshwarlu, created a stir by saying that 'everything in the Kaleshwaram project was decided by Chandrashekar Rao'.
Some engineers said the construction of barrages at the three sites was a premeditated decision though WAPCOS was given the responsibility of preparing the detailed project report. The payment of bills to contractors was made before project completion, they said. They attributed the sinking of piers to design and quality deficiencies and the lack of proper maintenance.
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