Hyderabad: State Irrigation Minster N Uttam Kumar Reddy on Monday disclosed findings of the Judicial Commission on the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project, directly blaming former Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao for bypassing rules, ignoring expert warnings, and plunging the State into Rs 84,000 crore of high-interest debt.

In a powerpoint presentation after the cabinet meeting, Uttam said the Commission’s 660-page report, led by former Supreme Court judge Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose, exposed how Telangana’s most expensive project became an engineering and financial disaster due to unilateral and illegal decisions made during the BRS regime.

“We had promised the people that a judicial inquiry would be ordered into the Medigadda barrage collapse. After coming to power, we formed a Commission headed by Justice Ghose, and now that report has been submitted,” Uttam said. “It clearly says KCR acted not as Chief Minister but as an administrative head issuing direct orders that went against institutional processes.”

Quoting from the report, Minister Uttam said: “The Commission has held that there is rank irregularity from the stage of conceptualisation of the project till the administrative approvals on March 1, 2016. These decisions were not those of the government, but of individuals.”

He said the decision to shift the barrage from Tummidihatti to Medigadda was made solely by KCR, under the false pretext of water unavailability. “The report says the reason for abandoning Tummidihatti does not appear sincere or honest,” Uttam added.

The Minister reminded that even Union Minister Uma Bharti had confirmed water availability at Tummidihatti and the Central Water Commission (CWC) had approved the hydrology of the Pranahita-Chevella project in October 2014. “But KCR’s government wrote to the Centre saying there was no water, and that misrepresentation was found to be malicious by the Commission,” Uttam said.

Minister Uttam revealed that an expert committee constituted by KCR’s own government via G.O. Rt. No. 28 in January 2015 had recommended that building a barrage at Medigadda was unviable and not economical. “They clearly said the barrage should be built at Vemanapally instead. That report was deliberately kept aside,” he said.

“The Commission observes that the suppression of this report was not accidental. It was done with intent to allow the CM and Irrigation Minister to go ahead with Medigadda against all expert advice,” he noted.

Uttam Kumar Reddy laid out the timeline: “The Medigadda barrage agreement was signed in 2016. The Kaleshwaram project was inaugurated in 2019. By October 21, 2023, Pillar 20 of Medigadda’s Block-7 collapsed due to structural failure.”

He said the Commission endorsed the NDSA’s findings which cited serious planning and design flaws. “The barrage was built on a permeable foundation, unsuitable for a storage structure. A cavity filled with soil was found instead of sand. Only 7,498 concrete samples were tested instead of the 37,000+ required,” he quoted from the report.