Telangana Govt orders vigilance probe into Medigadda Barrage

The vigilance officials took up search operations in the offices of the three engineers-in-chief associated with the implementation of the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme right from its conception

Hyderabad: The State government on Tuesday ordered a vigilance inquiry into the sinking of the pillars in Block No 7 of the Medigadda Barrage.

Consequent to the government decision in favour of a vigilance probe ahead of the judicial inquiry, which was already announced by Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy, vigilance teams conducted simultaneous raids on the offices of the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme (KLIS) at Jala Soudha in Hyderabad and KLIS offices across the districts.

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The vigilance officials took up search operations in the offices of the three engineers-in-chief associated with the implementation of the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme right from its conception. Medigadda is one of the three barrages constructed as part of the KLIS reverse pumping system.

The staff at the office of Engineer-in-Chief (General) C Muralidhar had tense moments, as the vigilance officials cordoned off the premises before commencing the searches earlier in the day. The teams went through the files in the computers before they collected important office files from the staff.

They raided offices of the engineers-in-chief B Hariram and N Venkateswarlu both at Jala Soudha and at the project site. They collected important files from the offices of their subordinates including the executive engineers.

The pump houses at Kannepalli were also searched by vigilance teams and important files were collected by them from the staff.

Irrigation Minister N Uttam Kumar Reddy said the State government had already written to the Chief Justice of Telangana for sparing a sitting judge to conduct the judicial probe into the Medigadda issue. The State cabinet has taken a decision to probe the lapses in the construction of the project by a sitting judge. The government had taken the issue seriously and it had arranged a power point presentation at Medigadda sharing the information pertaining to the project with the media and the public, he said.