Hyderabad: The state government filed a case in the Supreme Court after becoming ‘perturbed’ at the central government’s ‘disregard’ for Telangana’s repeated requests for a thorough reevaluation of flood analysis and the submergence of Bhadrachalam due to Polavaram backwaters, Finance Minister Harish Rao said on Tuesday.
Members of the TRS and Congress in the Assembly spoke out against the possibility of Bhadrachalam, the Lord Sri Rama temple, and the surrounding areas flooding as a result of the Polavaram project’s backwaters.
The Polavaram project, according to Congress MLA P Veeraiah and TRS MLA Sandra Venkata Veeraiah, improperly impacted flood studies and submergence impact assessments by the central government.
They demanded the return of Telangana’s five village panchayats, which were merged with Andhra Pradesh. MLA Venkata Veeraiah said that land was needed even to build the retaining wall around Bhadrachalam to prevent flooding, and it was crucial to merge the five villages back into Telangana.
The Finance Minister stated that chief minister K Chandrashekhar Rao had personally raised the issue of submergence and raising the project height with the Central Government during a brief discussion on the Central Government’s failures in implementing the assurances made under the AP Reorganisation Act in the House.
Transport Minister P Ajay Kumar said that flood water usually recedes quickly in Bhadrachalam, but there was an obstruction due to Polavaram.
On humanitarian grounds, he urged the Andhra Pradesh government to stick to the earlier plan of 36 lakh cusecs capacity rather than raising the project height to store 56 lakh cusecs.
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