Musi rejuvenation project only after rehabilitation of victims, demands Kavitha

Kavitha said the government should first take up cleaning of the Musi river and then work on rehabilitation of the affected people and after completing all the necessary works, take up the project. Without doing all these, the government was going ahead with the Musi rejuvenation project and creating problems for thousands of people, she said.

Hyderabad: Stating that the Congress government was misleading the people on the issue of Musi rejuvenation project, BRS MLC K Kavitha warned that her party would not allow the project until the affected people of Musi riverbed and buffer zone were properly rehabilitated.

Speaking to the media at the Legislative Council premises on Tuesday, Kavitha said the government should first take up cleaning of the Musi river and then work on rehabilitation of the affected people and after completing all the necessary works, take up the project. Without doing all these, the government was going ahead with the Musi rejuvenation project and creating problems for thousands of people, she said.

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She made it clear that until the affected people were rehabilitated, the BRS party would not allow the project. “We will stand by the people and see that they get justice. There is no question of allowing the project without rehabilitation,” she said.

The BRS MLC also said the Congress government was providing wrong information about the Musi rejuvenation project. Industries Minister D Sridhar Babu says the government had so far not prepared the Detailed Project Report (DPR) of the project, but he accepts that the government had approached the World Bank for a loan of Rs.4,100 crore for the project.

“How can the government approach the World Bank without a DPR? The government is misleading the people on the issue,” she said.

BRS was not against the Musi rejuvenation project, but it wanted the government to take up the project in a phased manner and by doing justice to the affected people, she said, adding that during the BRS government, the then Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao had also conducted a survey and found that about 7,000 houses would be affected due to the project. He had hence dropped it and set up STPs to clean the drainage flowing into the Musi river.

“Revanth Reddy knows that over 7000 houses will be affected due to the project, but still he allowed the marking of 15,000 houses for demolition without taking up rehabilitation,” she said.