Rewind: The Banakacherla — bias and beyond

While civil society fiercely criticised Kalaeshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme, its silence on Banakacherla project is troubling

By Chandri Raghava Reddy

Rajahmundry — the very name — carries a certain cultural vibe among Telugu people. Maybe it is due to the influence of Telugu cinema. Still, the place reflects the abundant beauty of nature, with coconut trees swaying, green fields stretching wide, water canals weaving through the interiors, and old locks controlling the waters.

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More than that, it is the spirit of the people which elevates the region into something amazing. In films, this elevation appears almost magical. The image that comes to mind instantly is the iconic railway bridge, under which the mighty Godavari spreads over nearly five kilometres, flowing with solemn grandeur. Always full, always murmuring, it feels like a symbol of the spiritual bond between humanity and nature.

However, before the Dowleswaram anicut’s construction, the twin Godavari districts were among the most devastated in the region, suffering from recurrent famines and floods. The region was ravaged by a severe famine in 1832-33, followed by three drought years —1835 to 1838 — and then by a cyclone in 1839, and almost equally disastrous seasons even after.

Impact of Irrigation

With these frequent famines and devastations, nearly one-third of the region’s population perished during the times without food and shelter. Historians refer to this period as ‘Dokkala Karuvu’ (only ribs are seen without any flesh). As Elizabeth Reid Cotton, daughter of Sir Arthur Cotton and popularly known as Lady Hope, recounts: children were sold for mere annas to survive.

This reality stands in stark contrast to what we see in the region today, thanks to Sir Arthur Cotton, who started the Dowleswaram anicut in April 1847. The project was completed by March 1852. The anicut transformed the Godavari delta into one of the most fertile and agriculturally productive regions in India. The anicut not only saved lives but also laid the foundation for modern irrigation in Andhra Pradesh. His legacy is still deeply revered as his name is even invoked in local hymns during funeral rites in parts of Konaseema.

Although Sir Cotton is revered as the architect of irrigation transformation, a critical lens reveals that he constructed anicut to serve the British government’s interests, as the irrigation facility would boost agriculture and so the land revenues. Thus, it is argued that famine prevention and development of the region were secondary and maximising revenue collection was the primary aim.

The above reference to the fully flowing Godavari River throughout the year can be attributed to the Dowleswaram anicut. Constructed approximately nine km downstream, the anicut fundamentally altered the region’s fate. Imagining the area without it reveals the true significance of its impact. The point to be noted here is that several cultural centres, like Rajahmundry, could have thrived along the Godavari across Telangana had similar barrages been built. Telangana’s misfortune is that, even after constructing barrages, the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme (KLIS) became a pawn in the political slugfest.

The next relevant example is the Nagarjuna Sagar project, launched in integrated Andhra Pradesh. Prior to its commissioning, the districts of Krishna, Guntur and Prakasam were facing persistent drought, low standards of living, and limited political and cultural stature compared to Godavari districts.
However, following the commissioning of Nagarjuna Sagar, these districts experienced a phenomenal growth, not only in terms of socioeconomic development but also in political articulation. The region’s transformation led to the emergence of new forms of hegemony, giving rise to caste politics and caste domination in the media and film industry.

Irrigation and Politics

The comparison of Dowleswaram and Nagarjuna Sagar becomes pertinent when evaluating the contemporary debates surrounding Kaleshwaram and Banakacherla. Irrigation projects hold immense potential not only for improving economic conditions but also for shaping political and cultural hegemony across regions. If the rise of Godavari districts, catalysed by the Dowleswaram project, influenced pre-integration Andhra politics, then the Krishna-Guntur region, developed by the Nagarjuna Sagar project, came to dominate the political landscape in integrated Andhra Pradesh.

The people in Telangana, and particularly the farming community, must recognise that Godavari districts and the Krishna-Guntur region were not significantly superior to any district in Telangana before the commissioning of the projects in their regions. Their rise in political hegemony was rooted in economic development aided by access to assured and low-cost irrigation. Without the irrigation projects, no amount of effort can sustain indigenous leadership or enable regional assertion.

The narrative portraying KLIS as a failed project appears to be a calculated strategy. First, it aims to malign KLIS so that it is stalled and thus prevent the economic development of Telangana. Second, it seeks to keep the region entrenched in a perpetual inferiority complex, projecting it as backward and in need of help.

KLIS stands as a landmark in Indian irrigation engineering, a testament to technical ingenuity, visionary leadership, and above all, a strong commitment to the people of Telangana. From the initiation of works to the commissioning of major components, it was executed within a remarkable span of just four years. It is not merely a single barrage or conventional irrigation initiative; it is a symphony of scale and simultaneity.

Its hallmark lies in executing multiple mega-scale components simultaneously: barrage construction at three locations across the Godavari, pump houses erected at strategic intervals, canals spanning nearly 2,000 km, reservoirs built across diverse terrains, and an extensive electricity substation network to energise the lifts. Taken individually, each of these tasks could take years; together, they represent what would conventionally require at least two decades. KLIS achieved all of this in the shortest timeframe in modern Indian history.

This monumental achievement did not happen without hurdles. It weathered legal and political challenges with unyielding resolve from the leadership, fending off opposition designed more to derail Telangana’s progress than to debate its merits. Unable to digest the transformative potential of KLIS, one that could do for Telangana what Dowleswaram did for the Godavari delta and what Nagarjuna Sagar did for Krishna and Guntur, the petty leadership turned to media campaigns aimed at maligning and discrediting this visionary endeavour. What was truly an effort to rewrite Telangana’s future has, in some circles, been reduced to mere political polemic.

The outcomes of KLIS are no less significant, although they have rarely found meaningful representation in the legacy media located in Hyderabad. KLIS has stabilised groundwater levels, reduced reliance on erratic monsoons and unsustainable borewells, expanded area under cultivation, and enabled a shift from rain-fed subsistence farming to assured irrigation. It has boosted agricultural productivity and revived fisheries across Telangana villages. KLIS has also made minor irrigation tanks and open wells come alive, revived degraded ecosystems, and promoted biodiversity.

In terms of rural development, KLIS has elevated the standard of living by stabilising incomes, reducing agrarian distress, and generating employment. In essence, it may be said that KLIS has achieved in five years what Dowleswaram did for the Godavari delta over more than a century and what Nagarjuna Sagar did for Krishna, Guntur, and Prakasam districts over four decades. The crucial observation here is that if KLIS does not get entangled in the political game, it can transform the region into one of the richest in the country.

That said, what sustains projects like Dowleswaram and Nagarjuna Sagar is not just their initial vision, but the commitment of successive governments to repairs and maintenance. This has been largely possible due to sustained pressure from the politically empowered farmer lobby that transcends party lines. Unfortunately, KLIS lacks that farmers’ voice across party lines. The future of the project depends on farmers evolving into a politically conscious and assertive collective, which Karl Marx would distinguish as the shift from a class ‘in itself’ to a class ‘for itself.’ Without this awakening, long-term prospects for sustainable irrigation and agrarian empowerment remain fragile.

The Banakacherla…

Turning to the Banakacherla project, Telangana’s concerns centre around its location, the inter-basin diversion of water, and the timing of its proposal. Irrigation engineers challenge the very notion of “surplus water,” asserting that surplus must be calculated only after the river crosses its last downstream project. In the case of the Godavari River, surplus would be measurable only after it crosses the Dowleswaram Barrage. They argue that any project based on surplus water should, therefore, be located downstream of Dowleswaram, not upstream.

Additionally, they emphasise that inter-basin diversion should not occur unless the needs of upper riparian States are fully met. For decades under integrated Andhra Pradesh, the Godavari often ran dry, with Telangana receiving negligible irrigation benefits. In response, the Telangana government initiated KLIS to pump water upstream to meet its needs.

The current situation surrounding KLIS suggests a deliberate attempt by Andhra-based interests to maintain a dry flow downstream, thus benefiting Andhra Pradesh and paving the way for diversion to other river basins. If KLIS is reduced to a political pawn, especially to secure votes in the southern States via Banakacherla’s diversion to Penna basin, Telangana stands to suffer disproportionately.

The irony is stark: despite repeated requests, the central government has not contributed a single rupee to KLIS construction, which was funded solely by Telangana’s own resources. Yet, it now seeks to appropriate the water enabled by the scheme for use in other States. It’s akin to declaring: “Not only will I deny you water, but I will also prevent you from securing your own.”

Another important dimension of the Banakacherla issue is the narrative being shaped in popular media. To understand its implications, one must compare it with how KLIS was portrayed. KLIS was subjected to widespread criticism: on the grounds of economic viability, sustainability, environmental damage, submergence, forest protection, and more alarmingly, on the fundamental question of why Telangana needs water at all. These questions were raised indiscriminately across Telugu and English media, both print and electronic.

…And the biases 

The most debated point was: why should the state invest in lifting water at all? Why should it bear the cost of electricity for such efforts? The implicit message was clear: let the region remain in perpetual drought. Ironically, experts and scholars argued that increased irrigation water would lead to excessive paddy cultivation, and for the first time, the local discourse began citing paddy’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions.

Environmental concerns were invoked, with warnings about submerging forest lands and ecological damage. But nowhere in these critiques was there any reference to decades of neglect suffered by Telangana under integrated Andhra Pradesh, or acknowledgement of its rightful share of the Godavari’s waters. Not a single article in either Telugu or English media supported KLIS’ construction. The national English media echoed the same scepticism, and even today, the country at large remains unaware of the transformative potential of KLIS. This negative campaign seeped into national expert circles, central bureaucracies, tribunals, and beyond.

It’s important to recognise that the impact of projects like Dowleswaram or Nagarjuna Sagar extends beyond water; it creates intellectual capital. In Telangana’s case, the voices of scholars and academics who supported KLIS were so marginalised that they barely registered in the national discourse. Not because they lacked substance, but because biased media outlets silenced them, while hegemonic narratives, despite lacking merit, dominated the conversation.

In the case of Banakacherla, Telangana’s citizens, especially farmers, are asking: why aren’t questions being raised about its economic viability? Why is water being diverted outside the river basin? Why the urgency? And yet, not a single intellectual voice is scrutinising the cost of lifting water, the same question that was fiercely debated during KLIS.

Most glaringly, environmental concerns appear less important suddenly. The proposed pipelines pass through the Nallamala forest, threatening the sensitive ecosystem and causing the displacement of people through the construction of massive reservoirs. While civil society, including legal experts, academics, and activists, was vocal in criticising KLIS, its conspicuous silence on the Banakacherla project is troubling. In the absence of these critical voices, the biased media is playing its role by portraying Telangana’s objections to Banakacherla as regressive and projecting State leaders who oppose it in a negative light.

The paradox is hard to miss: the objections to KLIS were widely accepted as legitimate, progressive, and rooted in ecological and constitutional concerns. But when similar concerns are raised against Banakacherla, they are dismissed as anti-development and politically motivated. Farmers of Telangana must recognise that the print media they read and the electronic media they watch rarely echo their concerns. The traditionally biased media forces the Telangana public to prioritise what the media deems legitimate.

The final irony is that newspapers which ridicule Telangana-centric projects enjoy wider circulation across Telangana than those that advocate for the region’s interests. It is time to recognise that in contemporary politics, economic prosperity fuels political assertiveness. So long as attention is diverted from developmental issues, the region will continue to be steered toward poverty, only to be led by the very forces that perpetuate poverty in the region.

The Banakacherla project

• Estimated at Rs 80,112 crore
• Aims to divert surplus Godavari waters to Penna basin via Krishna River
• Structured in three segments:

• Segment I involves transferring water from Polavaram project to Prakasam Barrage on Krishna River
• Segment II channels water from Prakasam Barrage to a proposed 150 TMC reservoir at Bollapalli in Guntur district
• Segment III diverts water from Bollapalli to Banakacherla regulator in Nandyal district.

• Expected to provide drinking water to 80 lakh people and irrigate 7.5 lakh acres, primarily in Andhra Pradesh’s drought-prone Rayalaseema region

KLIS vs Banakacherla: The Double Standards

• While the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme was dissected from all angles, the proposed Banakacherla project, despite its ecological risks — escapes scrutiny
• Kaleshwaram: Built entirely with Telangana’s funds, with zero contribution from the Centre. Despite this, it faced relentless scrutiny — legal, environmental, and media-led
• Banakacherla: Proposes laying pipelines through the ecologically sensitive Nallamala forest, but is seeing no public opposition, environmental activism, or judicial intervention.
• KLIS transformed Telangana’s irrigation landscape in just five years —a feat comparable to what the Dowleswaram Barrage achieved for the Godavari delta over a century, and Nagarjuna Sagar did for Krishna and Guntur over four decades
• Before these major irrigation projects, Godavari districts and Krishna-Guntur region were not significantly ahead of Telangana districts. Their political rise was rooted in the economic transformation enabled by assured, low-cost irrigation
• If KLIS is reduced to a political pawn, to secure votes via Banakacherla’s diversion to Penna basin, Telangana stands to suffer disproportionately

 

(The author is Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Hyderabad)