Bhatti: Devadula project top priority of Cong govt
During his visit to the project along with his cabinet colleagues N Uttam Kumar Reddy, Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy, Vaakiti Srihari, and Seethakka, as well as local MPs and MLAs, Bhatti said that from the very beginning of the Devadula Project until now, the Congress government has taken it up with the utmost prestige. 'It is said that a total of Rs 100 crore is pending, including land acquisition costs and other outstanding bills. We will release these funds in phases. Officials should immediately send the related details. Through this project, irrigation water is being supplied to 17 constituencies in the state,' he said.
The Irrigation Minister, N Uttam Kumar Reddy, who accompanied him, said that the project is designed to irrigate 5.57 lakh acres across Hanamkonda, Warangal, Karimnagar, Jayashankar Bhupalpally, Mulugu, Jangaon, Yadadri, Suryapet, and Siddipet districts.With a total lift of 469 metres—from +71 m to +540 m—and the utilisation of 38.16 TMC over 170 pumping days annually, the project is being executed in three phases. It includes major pump houses, rising and delivery mains, balancing reservoirs, and an extensive canal network to deliver water to high-elevation command areas. Uttam said the revised project cost was Rs 18,500 crore, of which Rs 14,168.49 crore had been spent. An additional Rs 4,331.51 crore was urgently required to clear contractor dues, complete delivery main encasement works, and finalise pending land acquisition. Once completed, the JCRDLIS would stabilise the existing ayacut, provide drinking water to rural habitations, improve crop yields, and reduce migration from water-scarce areas.
Earlier in the day, Uttam Kumar Reddy participated in the foundation stone laying ceremony for the Rs 630.30 crore Jawahar Lift Irrigation Scheme (LIS) at Vangaveedu in Madhira mandal, Khammam district, alongside Deputy Chief Minister Bhatti Vikramarka and Ministers Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy, D Seethakka, Vakkati Srihari, and Komatireddy Venkat Reddy. Calling it a 'game changer' for Madhira, he said tenders had been finalised and the project would be completed within one year to provide irrigation to 33,000 acres.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Indian Express
18 minutes ago
- Indian Express
Anurag Thakur ‘proved' fake voter list charge, says Congress; BJP hits back
A day after former Union minister Minister Anurag Thakur alleged irregularities in voter registration in a number of LS seats held by Opposition leaders and accused them of 'vote theft', Congress Thursday said it 'proves' the 2024 LS polls were 'based on a fake voter list'. Questioning the EC for not serving a notice to Thakur, as it did in Lok Sabha LoP Rahul Gandhi's case, AICC Media and Publicity Department Chairman Pawan Khera said, 'We demand that the evidence presented by Anurag Thakur be handed over to us. He has proven there is collusion between BJP and the EC,' he said. Khera said that Thakur's analysis 'proves that the previous LS election (in 2024) was based on a fake voter list, so shouldn't it be considered fraudulent and cancelled?… We thank Anurag Thakur and the BJP for proving the point made by Rahul Gandhi ji that the elections are fought on the basis of fake voters'. Hitting back, Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat claimed that Congress's history is replete with instances when it resorted to 'fraud, deception and deceit' in its 'greed' for power. Reiterating BJP national IT cell chief Amit Malviya's allegation against ex-Congress chief Sonia Gandhi that 'her name first appeared on the rolls in 1980, three years before she became an Indian citizen', Shekhawat accused the Gandhi family 'which has stolen mandates, looted booths, rejected votes to change outcomes, and deprived voters of their right to vote' of making 'baseless claims to portray itself as the saviour of democracy'. He said Sonia Gandhi 'being a voter in 1980 amounted to challenging India's sovereignty and showing contempt for the constitutional process'.
The Hindu
28 minutes ago
- The Hindu
Thrissur Voter List: BJP's Suresh Gopi Faces Heat Over Irregularities
Published : Aug 14, 2025 15:24 IST - 6 MINS READ After the Congress party in Kerala pointed to a massive increase in voters that had been noticed in Thrissur Lok Sabha constituency just before the 2024 Lok Sabha election, political parties and media organisations have begun to investigate the issue. The results have thrown up multiple cases of what seems like voter fraud perpetrated in the constituency. The lone BJP MP from Kerala who won from Thrissur, the actor and Union Minister of State Suresh Gopi, has been pursued by media outlets, but refuses to say anything other than 'thank you for the favours done'. Suresh Gopi won the 2024 Lok Sabha election by polling 74,686 votes more than his nearest rival, the Communist Party of India's V.S. Sunil Kumar, who was the Left Democratic Front (LDF) candidate. The Left's vote percentage did not dip, and hence it became clear that there were no deletions from the voter list. The Congress's K. Muraleedharan, who was the United Democratic Front candidate, was placed third. It seemed to indicate that the Congress, which won 14 seats in 2024 in the coalition government, was pushed to third place because Christians in Thrissur voted for the BJP. The Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee's doubts began after it realised that Thrissur saw a massive increase in voters in 2024 compared to previous elections. That it realised it so late points to flippancy on the part of the party's Thrissur unit ahead of the election and is an indicator of the lack of grassroots involvement and the sense of alienation among the party's lower rungs. In 2019, Thrissur ranked ninth in the number of voters added in Kerala's 20 constituencies. In 2024, it ranked number one. 'Thrissur saw an addition of 62,318 voters in 2019, while the same constituency saw an addition of 1,46,656 (2.35 times more) votes, making it the largest constituency in Kerala,' Congress' Kerala unit noted in a post on the social media platform X. No big-ticket projects in Thrissur Unlike Thiruvananthapuram, which has seen some big-ticket projects in the recent past (such as the Vizhinjam port project) or Ernakulam-Kochi (the seat of the High Court and Kerala's biggest city) or Kozhikode (Kerala's northern commerce hub), there has been no post-2019 industrial activity in Thrissur for people to flock to the district in massive numbers. The leaders of the Left combine and the Congress have said this in multiple fora. Also Read | Complacency of ECI is helping the BJP: Mansoor Ali Khan Thomas Isaac, CPI(M)'s central committee member and former Kerala Finance Minister, said: 'Was Suresh Gopi's [BJP] win in Thrissur LS seat yet another vote scam? This charge has become a hot topic of debate in Kerala. Average increase in number of voters per constituency in Kerala between 2019 and 2024 was only 80,000, while in Thrissur it rose by nearly 1.5 lakh votes.' He added. 'In 2024, even a postal card addressed to the voter was sufficient evidence for domicile. Now, not even Aadhaar is acceptable. The BJP wanted to add fake voters, and now they want to delete genuine voters. Objective is the same—steal elections.' Reacting to the furore from both the Left parties and the Congress, the embattled BJP State president Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that if anyone had complaints about the conduct of the elections, they should get in touch with the Election Commission or file a case in court. 'Trying to fool people by throwing baseless allegations is not right,' he added. 'Kerala's local body elections are slated to be held later this year. The ruling LDF is yet to formulate an approach to the current revelations as it weighs the options of seeking legal action versus using it as a campaign strategy.' The Kerala Chief Electoral Officer, the topmost official for the conduct of national and State elections in Kerala, took exception to the losing candidate Sunil Kumar claiming voter fraud and said that all procedures, as mandated in the election rules, were followed. A press release noted that during the election scrutiny meeting held after the election, neither the candidate nor the election agent had raised any concerns regarding the voters' list. Any objections, the release said, should have been brought before the High Court through an election petition within the prescribed time under the law. In response, the CPI(M) general secretary M.A. Baby said: 'Belated reporting of a theft does not absolve the perpetrator of the crime.' Congress' complaint against Gopi The Congress has filed a complaint on August 12 against Suresh Gopi on an interesting charge: Gopi, it claims, filed a false affidavit asserting that he had been domiciled in Thrissur for more than six months before filing his nomination papers. The complaint is being investigated by the police. The complainant, the former Congress MP T.N. Prathapan, said that Gopi was, in fact, registered as a voter in Sasthamangalam in Thiruvananthapuram, where he was a permanent resident. An associated question relates to Suresh Gopi's driver, S. Ajay Kumar, a resident of Thiruvananthapuram. His name was also added to the electoral roll in Thrissur ahead of the 2024 election. When questioned on a talk show in Mathrubhumi's cable TV channel, the BJP's spokesperson P. Shyamraj deflected by declaring: 'You are trying to make it seem as if only we [the BJP] have done this [adding voters illegally].' When the anchor, Abhilash Mohanan, repeated the question, Shyamraj declared that it was not his job to find addresses. In response, Mohanan said, 'The address given as that of Suresh Gopi's driver is an apartment where the driver has never stayed. A lone woman stays at Pookunnam Capital Village Apartment 4C. How many such people have been added?' Many more, including 11 members of Suresh Gopi's immediate family, have been included in the electoral roll in Thrissur ahead of the election. All the names are under one address, a house that Suresh Gopi rented, 'Bharat Heritage' in Nettisery in Thrissur. The fraud became apparent when it was found that Suresh Gopi's brother, Subhash, and his wife Rani were enrolled in both Kollam, their city of residence, and in Thrissur. According to media reports, both of them voted in Thrissur. Also Read | Whatever happened to the Kerala model? Two Malayalam news television channels, Kairali News and Media One, reported on August 13 that they had uncovered cases of voter fraud in Thrissur. For instance, they reported that in Thrissur's Avanisseri Panchayat (Nattika constituency), Booth No 69, all voters from Numbers 1432 to 1563 were fake. They had found that all 17 persons, aged 20 to 61 years, were registered as having the same father, although they lived in different addresses. The father's name was recorded as C.V. Anil Kumar, a BJP member who was also a Booth Level Agent. The channels also found that Anil Kumar was a resident of the nearby Cheruvatheri Panchayat. Many residents across Kerala are coming forward with similar charges. In Kochi's Mundamveli, a family of three said that 31 migrant workers were added to their address. In another instance, an elderly couple said they had found six strangers added under their address. One election official said such errors could be due to sloppy work or oversight. Kerala's local body elections are slated to be held later this year. The ruling LDF is yet to formulate an approach to the current revelations as it weighs the options of seeking legal action versus using it as a campaign strategy. The Congress is on firmer ground because of the direction from its High Command to make voter fraud an issue at all levels. The BJP's best defence so far has been to claim that such discrepancies are normal across constituencies, including in places where the Congress won.
India Today
32 minutes ago
- India Today
'Save Gujarat University' protest amid corruption allegations, students seek audit
Members of the National Students' Union of India (NSUI), former syndicate members, and former students, are staging protests amid allegations of large-scale corruption at Gujarat University. The protesters, carrying posters and beating drums, accused the administration of irregularities in projects like the Rifle Club, Tennis Court, Convention Center, and Food Court. They have launched a "Save Gujarat University" campaign.A heavy police presence was deployed on campus as demonstrators sat outside Vice Chancellor Neerja Gupta's office, raising slogans and demanding an audit. They have given the VC a 72-hour ultimatum to act, including filing FIRs against those syndicate member Indravijay Singh Gohil alleged that Gupta had broken a fixed deposit of Rs 150 crore out of the university's Rs 240 crore reserve for the first time in its history. He also claimed that the VC was appointing retired ONGC employees, allegedly linked to her husband, on salaries ranging from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 5 further alleged that a syndicate member had demanded Rs 75 lakh from a university head of department, and that there was a recording of the incident. He accused the university of handing over facilities to private agencies without tenders, citing the convention center renovation cost of Rs 35 crore—more than its original construction cost of Rs 30 crore—as an also questioned why academy receipts for the tennis court were issued under a private name, with the university taking only 30 per cent of the Congress chief spokesperson, Manish Doshi, backed the protesters, saying corruption had increased after the implementation of the University Act. "Land is being given to private agencies without tender. FIRs must be filed and an independent audit conducted so that the truth comes out," he Chancellor Neerja Gupta rejected all allegations. She said the university had acted within four days on the Rs 75 lakh bribe matter by securing the resignation of the syndicate member involved. However, she noted that the FIR will have to be filed by those from whom the money was the fixed deposit claim, Gupta said it was false and that "proof will be given" showing the fixed deposit amount remains denied handing over the sports academy to a private agency, explaining that tenders were invited but no bidders came forward, so the university runs it with outside coaching support. "70 percent of tennis court earnings go to coaching and maintenance; the remaining 30 percent goes to the university," she clarified that the convention center had been converted into Dhanvantri Hospital during Covid-19 and was now being restored as a convention hall at a cost of Rs 35 lakh, not Rs 35 crore. She dismissed the Rifle Club allegations as "AI-generated misinformation" and denied any Rs 5 lakh membership standoff continues, with protesters insisting on swift action and the university administration standing by its denials.- EndsMust Watch IN THIS STORY#Gujarat
