Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy told the Telangana Legislative Assembly on Saturday (January 03) that neither former Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao nor then Irrigation minister T. Harish Rao had any intention to give water to Palamuru (combined Mahabubnagar) through Palamuru-Rangareddy Lift Irrigation Scheme (PRLIS), and they changed the sources from Jurala to Srisailam to make easy money.
Replying to the short discussion on the Krishna River waters, he said that had the source of Jurala been continued, Andhra Pradesh would have found no ground to oppose PRLIS, and most of it would have been completed by now with the expenditure made so far (over ₹27,000 crore) since the Bifurcation Act has the provision to continue the projects finalised till bifurcation.
He alleged that the main idea behind the source change and redesigning of the project was to make easy money by following the Kaleshwaram pattern of exploitation. Mr. Chandrashekhar Rao as the first Chief Minister of Telangana, had mortgaged the Krishna River water rights of the State since 2015 by agreeing to an adhoc water share of 299 tmc ft as against 512 tmc ft to A.P. out of assured water allocation of 811 tmc ft to the combined A.P. Moreover, the KCR government submitted to the Supreme Court that PRLIS was a drinking water project and not an irrigation project thus harming the Mahabubnagar district forever.
