Hyderabad: They will justify cost, says KTR on Musi redevelopment

Hyderabad: Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) working president KT Rama Rao (KTR) on Sunday, October 20, slammed the Telangana government for sending a delegation to Seoul, South Korea to study riverfront development.

KTR took a dig at the Telangana government for constituting the delegation and sarcastically complimented the delegation consisting of a Congress MP and a few renowned journalists from Telangana. The delegation has been constituted by the Municipal Administration and Urban Development department to study and implement the idea for Musi Riverfront Development.

The Rajanna Sircilla MLA took to X and said, “My compliments to the Telangana Govt on sending a team of Experts, Environmentalists, Hydrologists, Engineers & Bureaucrats to study the River Front Development in Seoul. I am sure they will come back with excellent results and justify spending ₹ 1.5 Lakh Crores (approximately USD 20 Billion) of public money,”

The delegation will travel to Seoul on Monday to study the Cheonggyecheon Riverfront Development in Seoul. Questions are being raised over sending journalists rather than bureaucrats, engineers and experts, for the study tour.

Earlier this week, the BRS working president claimed that the Musi Riverfront Development could be completed at Rs 25,000 crore instead of Rs 1.5 lakh crore that the BRS says it will cost. He claimed that designs made by nine reputed companies were ready and that there was no need for spending and wasting the taxpayers’ money.

While presenting the achievements of the previous BRS government regarding the Musi Riverfront development, KTR noted that former chief minister K Chandrashekhar opted not to disturb the structures within the Musi River’s buffer zone due to the displacement of 100,000 people.

Instead, he proposed increasing the height of the retaining walls of the Musi River, similar to the approach taken in the Sabarmati riverfront development in Ahmedabad. The BRS working president outlined the five key initiatives implemented by the BRS government to revitalize the Musi River since 2017.

He said that Rs 3,866 crore was allocated to install 31 sewage treatment plants (STPs) along the nalas, with a total capacity to treat 1,259 million litres per day. He added that 90 percent of this work has already been completed under the BRS administration.