Hyderabad:Mallannasagar has already created history
First police shots on people by Government of Telangana
First arrest of Prof. Kondandram by Government of Telangana
Farmer sucide: B Narasaiah, hailing from Pallepahad village,had committed suicide allegedly against the land acquisition for the project.
Is this the beginning of open confrontation between people and Government of Telangana? Before getting into the questions, it is essential to have some basic
1. It is not enough if Government of Telangana says that they are constructing Mallannasagar for the benefit of Telangana
2. Equally, it is not appropriate to “oppose” Mallannasagar without having proper, credible and scientific information.They need to know first what it is, before deciding to oppose it.
3. People have right to protest when their homes and lands are being taken away without proper information, process and convincing argument that this project is good for Telangana farmers. People who are loosing houses, property can bargain, agitate to get the best deal they want. That does not mean they are opposing the project. Until they are satisfied, they have every right to bargain. Every one will do the same in similar What do we know about this project?- very little! Based on sporadic and often contradictory reports one can get the following vague and sketchy details. There is no official documents stating these things, just press reports.
Water storage: 51,000 million cubic feet of water to be stored. This is 51 TMC . This is about 1.4 billion cubic meters of water.
For those who want to know comparison, Sriram Sagar project, SRSP can store 92 TMC of water. Right now it has just 18 TMC.
Irrigation: The stored water be used for irrigating 12 lack ac (5 lack ha, or half a million ha).
Cost: Rs.9,800 crores. It is not clear this includes all the costs such land acquisition at the Mallannasagar, land for pipelines, etc. Or is it just the cost of construction. Does this include
Villages: 14 villages will be submerged fully or partly with
People: 30-50,000 will be directly and indirectly be displaced fully or partially. Telangana Government has duty and obligation to produce then following documents with highest professional quality with convincing case for Mallannasagar. That is not an option. Without such documents, actually GoT is responsible for all this confusion, agitations and also giving scope for people who may misuse the
1. A project proposal for Mallannasagar, as part of its overall strategy for improving the irrigation and productivity of
2. A Detailed Project Report (DPR), which should contain all the detailed information about the project, its costs, its benefits, its BC ratio, its capital costs, operational costs, energy requirement, technical specifications etc, etc. That is why it is The sad situation about Mallanana sagar ( and even all other irrigation projects of Telangana ) is that THE GOVERNMENT DO NOT HAVE ANY CREDIBLE DOCUMENTS to share for public debate. That is the key issue. In absence of these mandatory, obligatory documents all this confusion has arrived. There is no excuses for not preparing these documents. Without these documents rushing into the projects and giving contracts means, the motive of GoT need to be questioned.
Mallannasagar Project may be the BEST PROJECT in the world. It may as well could be THE WORST project. That can only be known through the DPR. In absence of those reports almost any one who want to say some thing is saying according to their own knowledge It is also important to mention here that, some of them who are opposing might as well be doing it for their own political existence, with some motives. That is always the case.
Irrigation Minister warned “people should not fall into the trap of Opposition parties”. That could be the case. It is also possible that Government of Telangana and particularly Irrigation minister, like many other irrigation minister earlier “should not fall into the trap of Contractors”. Earlier, Governments spent more than Rs.90,000 crores without almost not single ac additionally adding to irrigation. So it is not people can fall trap Governments too can fall trap. Is that the situation now. By not sharing the DPR, it actually appears that irrigation minister might be in the process of falling into the “trap of contractors”. That may not be true, but he has to come out clean by sharing the information.
This can only be answered with detailed information in the DPR. That is what those documents are supposed to be:
1. Do Telangana Government has DPR’s of Mallannasagar?. If answer is yes, why are they not releasing to public even after such controversy?, if they do yet have these documents, then why are they rushing to take the land from people?
2. What would be the total cost of the project when it is finished?, what would be operational cost for irrigating each ac/ha of
3. What would be pumping cost from Kaleshwaram to Mallannasagar (More than 350 meters)?. How many stages of
pumping, what would be the pumping efficiency.
4. What is the BC ratio, which is mandatory to calculate before the project is started?
5. Was there any better and more suitable alternatives to meet the same objective have been considered and discarded. This should have to be done as part of DPR.Most Important thing is that GoT should and must release DPR.
1. Government should and must stop land acquisition.
2. Without knowing the benefits and costs of Mallannasagar, it is not appropriate to oppose it, it is opposing not knowing what they are opposing.
3. Those who are critical of Mallannasagar should stop proposing alternatives, it is again not knowing the what it is, but suggesting some other thing to meet the objective
4. Every one Government and those who are agitating should not do any thing to confuse, divide people.