Cases based on Medigadda vigilance report, says Uttam

Irrigation Minister N Uttam Kumar Reddy said that the Vigilance Department was ready with its report on Medigadda and that it would be submitted to the government soon

Hyderabad: Irrigation Minister N Uttam Kumar Reddy said on Wednesday that the Vigilance Department was ready with its report on Medigadda and that it would be submitted to the government soon.

Addressing a news conference at Jala Soudha, he said the Director-General of Vigilance had briefed him about the status of the inquiry. “Based on the Vigilance report, we will file cases against the guilty. We will go as per law, and we will take legal opinion to proceed,” he said.

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Asked about the FIR filed suspecting sabotage to the Medigadda barrage, Uttam Kumar Reddy said the police were directed to continue their inquiry into the allegation. He dismissed the sabotage theory as ridiculous. He said former Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao should personally visit the Kaleshwaram project to witness its present status.

“From the government’s side, we’ve instructed the officials to extend full cooperation to the BRS leaders on the mission and let them inspect Medigadda and other barrages. But whatever the government has to do, it will do,” he said.

Uttam Kumar Reddy said that the State government had assigned the total inquiry of damage to the piers of the Medigadda Barrage and leakages in the Annaram and Sundilla barrages to the National Dam Safety Authority (NDSA). Based on the NDSA findings, further action, including repairs and options to utilize the project, would be explored. He stressed that a project on which Rs.94,000 crore was spent could not be abandoned entirely.

Regarding the judicial inquiry, Uttam Kumar Reddy said the Chief Justice of the Telangana High Court had expressed the inability to spare a sitting judge of the investigation. Therefore, he said other options for engaging a retired judge for the inquiry were being explored.