Pranahita-Chevella should be given national project status: Bhatti appeals to Modi

Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka demanded national project status for the Dr BR Ambedkar Pranahita-Chevella project ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Telangana visit. He also urged farmers to adopt crop diversification to improve farm incomes and promote nutritious food production

Hyderabad: Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Telangana, Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka demanded that the Dr BR Ambedkar Pranahita-Chevella project be declared a national project. He was speaking after the groundbreaking ceremony of a compressed biogas plant at Pantalugari Thota in Sircilla on Tuesday. The Deputy Chief Minister was accompanied by Ministers D Sridhar Babu, Tummala Nageshwar Rao and Ponnam Prabhakar.

Speaking on the occasion, he reminded that as per the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, the then Central government had promised to grant national status to one major irrigation project in Telangana. While the BJP government, which came to power in 2014, granted national project status to the Polavaram project in Andhra Pradesh, the same status was not given to any project in Telangana. This was proof of the Central government’s discrimination towards the State, he charged.

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Bhatti appeals to farmers to adopt crop diversification

The Deputy Chief Minister appealed to farmers to adopt crop diversification to make farming more profitable. Financial conditions would improve only when farmers reduce dependence on paddy and shift towards profitable crops such as horticultural crops, millets and oil palm, he stated. “Such cultivation will not only increase farmers’ income but also help provide society with nutritious food,” Bhatti Vikramarka said.