Appointment of Adityanath Das as Irrigation adviser opposed

Demanding the immediate withdrawal of the appointment, he said the decision would be a big blow to the interests of the State. Questioning as to what interest the appointment would serve for the State, he said he had nothing personally against the retired officer.

Hyderabad: Former Agriculture minister S Niranjan Reddy said on Saturday that the Congress government owed an explanation to the State over the appointment of Adityanath Das, retired IAS officer and former Chief Secretary of Andhra Pradesh, as the adviser to the government on irrigation.

Demanding the immediate withdrawal of the appointment, he said the decision would be a big blow to the interests of the State. Questioning as to what interest the appointment would serve for the State, he said he had nothing personally against the retired officer.

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But the officer was instrumental in the stalling of many Telangana projects including the Palamuru Rangareddy Lift Irrigation Scheme, he said.

The appointment was a pointer to the kind of influence the new AP Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu was enjoying over the matters of Telangana where his disciple Revanth Reddy happened to be the Chief Minister.

Naidu had started meddling with the affairs in Telangana well before he could take oath as the Chief Minister of AP, Niranjan Reddy said. He said that Adityanath Das was responsible for depriving Telangana of its due share of Krishna waters.

He was instrumental in diverting water from Krishna projects to Andhra Pradesh. As an officer he had fought on behalf of AP for the sake of its irrigation interests for the last 10 years since bifurcation.

How could he do justice to Telangana, he wondered.Stating that Adityanath was the officer who had sought to demolish every contention of Telangana for its due entitlement of river waters, the former Minister said the officer had played a key role in taking away Telangana share of water with illegal tapping through AP’s Pothireddypadu and Rayalaseema lift Irrigation schemes as well.