Ex-minister S. Niranjan Reddy.
HYDERABADThe Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) accused the Congress Government in the State of destroying the farmers’ hopes of an assured crop this season in the name of El Nino conditions, while neighbouring Andhra Pradesh has been diverting water from the two common reservoirs to fill projects in the areas outside the Krishna Basin to ensure water for irrigation there.Addressing a press conference here on Monday along with former legislators B. Harshavardhan Reddy, G. Jaipal Yadav, G. Kishore Kumar and others, former Minister S. Niranjan Reddy demanded that the government run the pumps of Kalwakurthy and Palamuru-Rangareddy lifts as also the ones based on the Jurala project to ensure at least one assured crop this year. He stated that Jurala would get up to 5,000 cusecs of regenerated water from Almatti and Narayanpur projects in Karnataka even if there was no release of water there.He alleged that A.P. had been diverting huge quantities of water from Srisailam once its level reached 854 ft (now standing at 875.8 ft). He reminded that Srisailam project was constructed for the purpose of hydro-electric generation and later in the name of giving drinking water to Madras (Chennai) and to give water for irrigation for 2 lakh acres on the way, A.P. had constructed Pothireddypadu Head Regulator first.Later, its capacity had been enhanced several times to divert huge quantities of Krishna water to the areas outside the basin at the cost of in-basin areas in the Telangana region, he explained. In the process, A.P. had constructed reservoirs with 235 tmc ft water-holding capacity, without having any water allocation and clearances. Published - August 24, 2026 08:46 pm IST
