Hyderabad: Ina sharp rebuttal to BRS leader T Harish Rao, Irrigation Minister N Uttam Kumar Reddy on Sunday accused the Revanth Reddy government’s predecessor of conspiring to mislead Palamuru farmers. He asserted that while the Congress government’s intention is to support farmers during harvest, BRS leaders harbour “evil intentions” of terrorising and confusing them every season.

Responding to the BRS leader’s demand to start the motors of Kannepalli Pump House, Uttam Kumar Reddy stated that the BRS was “constantly conspiring to cheat and worry farmers in the state,” and was “spreading conspiratorial lies.” He claimed that “Harish Rao has become accustomed to spreading lies more than Goebbels.” Uttam highlighted that last year, alongside the monsoon, Telangana farmers cultivated a record amount of paddy in the recent Yasangi season, an unprecedented achievement in India’s history. “Forgetting that fact, Harish Rao is speaking falsehood,” he said.

Uttam reminded that BRS had spread similar lies even before the Rabi season, making “devious attempts to create panic among the farmers.” He detailed the state’s agricultural success, noting that in the last monsoon, farmers cultivated paddy on 66.7 lakh acres and harvested 153.5 lakh metric tonnes of paddy. In Rabi, Telangana farmers cultivated paddy on 60 lakh acres, achieving a yield of 130 lakh metric tonnes. “The record of achieving 283 lakh metric tonnes of paddy in a single year in the history of the country was achieved under the leadership of Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy during the Congress government,” Uttam Kumar Reddy asserted. The Irrigation Minister further stated that the Medigadda barrage had collapsed due to the “incompetence, negligence, and mismanagement of the BRS.” He added that the Annaram and Sundilla barrages also remain in a dangerous condition. The National Dam Safety Authority (NDSA) found fault with the construction of Medigadda using secant piles technology. “Like Medigadda, the Annaram and Sundilla barrages have become dangerous because they were built using the same secant piles foundation technology. They are in an unusable condition,” he explained. Uttam questioned, “Have you forgotten that out of the 160 TMCs of water lifted from Medigadda to Annaram, Sundilla, and to Yellampally in the past, about 57 TMCs of water was again released into the sea by lifting the gates and pouring public money into the river?”

Uttam affirmed that the Congress government would take appropriate decisions on these projects as per the advice and suggestions of the NDSA, stating, “We do not need to believe the words of Harish Rao.”