HYDERABADThe Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) has demanded that the State government operate all pumping stations of lift irrigation projects/schemes to fill online reservoirs to give water directly to the ayacut and help improve groundwater table so that it could benefit the areas not covered by projects and their canal systems.Speaking separately, former ministers G. Jagadish Reddy and V. Srinivas Goud along with former MLAs Dr. M. Anand, B. Harshavardhan Reddy and MLCs Naveen Kumar and T. Ravinder Rao said here on Thursday that heavy flood was reaching most of the projects in the Krishna and Godavari Basins, but the government had not switched on all pumping stations to lift water and fill tanks linked.They accused the government of not operating the lifts to deny water for irrigation as it was apprehensive that it would result in good crop and turn burden in the form of procurement and bonus. They ridiculed the argument of Irrigation Minister N. Uttam Kumar Reddy and Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy on Kaleshwaram project and its barrages and pumping stations.Further, they alleged that the government was giving only a 12-hour power supply to the farm sector and such a supply was hampering lifting of water even in pumping stations which were being run partly. They said switching on of motors at Kannepally pump house linked to Medigadda Barrage would bring Godavari (Kaleshwaram) water till Suryapet.On the irrigation minister repeatedly citing National Dam Safety Authority (NDSA) report on Medigadda Barrage, they sought to know why the agency did not probe into the Srisailam Left Bank Canal (SLBC) project tunnel collapse, in which eight workers and engineers were buried alive and six of them were not traced at all. Published - July 30, 2026 09:11 pm IST