Congress, BJP compromising Singareni and Telangana’s interests: BRS

BRS leaders Vaddiraju Ravichandra and Tata Madhusudhan accused the BJP-led Centre and the Congress government in Telangana of neglecting Singareni, delaying environmental clearances, weakening the coal company and ignoring farmers' concerns while questioning the Centre's coal block allocation policy

Khammam: The BRS has strongly criticised the BJP government at the Centre and the Congress government in the State for allegedly colluding to ruin Singareni, the lifeline of Telangana, and the State’s water resources.

MP Vaddiraju Ravichandra and MLC Tata Madhusudhan, speaking to the media here on Monday, dismissed the ‘Singareni Bharosa Yatra’ undertaken by Union Minister G Kishan Reddy as mere drama.

---

Ravichandra sought to know why Kishan Reddy had failed to secure coal blocks for Singareni through the nomination method, even while the Centre allocated mines to the Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation through the same process.

At the end of the previous BRS regime, Singareni was making a profit of Rs 3,200 crore. He alleged that the present Congress government had diverted all funds and pushed the company into debt by running up an overdraft of Rs 4,300 crore.

Several opencast mines under Singareni, including Goleti, Madaram, KK (Mandamarri), Pusapalli (Yellandu) and Manuguru, were awaiting environmental clearances. He urged Kishan Reddy to take the initiative to secure these approvals.

Hitting out at Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy, Ravichandra pointed out that even when the diaphragm wall of the under-construction Polavaram project in Andhra Pradesh was washed away, leaders there never disparaged their own project.

Yet the Telangana Chief Minister constantly criticises and ridicules the Kaleshwaram project, the world’s largest lift irrigation scheme built at a cost of nearly Rs 90,000 crore. Flimsy excuses were being made despite the fact that closing the gates was not required to lift water from the project, he noted.

MLC Madhusudhan alleged that while farmers in the State were in distress, with July 15 approaching and sowing operations yet to reach even 6 per cent due to a lack of rainfall, Congress and BJP leaders remained indifferent. Only the BRS was actively fighting for the farmers’ cause, he said.

He alleged that the BJP government at the Centre was handing over national resources to Gujarat-based industrialists like Adani and Ambani through the Coal Mines Act introduced in 2015. Deputy Chief Minister Bhatti Vikramarka and Kishan Reddy had ‘umpired’ while the coal auctions took place in Hyderabad.

The KCR government had provided jobs to the heirs of 16,500 workers, but the Congress government stalled medical boards and refused to medically invalidate a worker who was forced to carry a dialysis bag, Madhusudhan added.