History of sorts was made in Telangana State legislature when the Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao made a simultaneous multi-media presentation before both the Houses on the irrigation projects. However, the Opposition Congress and the TDP boycotted the Powerpoint presentation on the ground that there was no precedence in the Parliamentary history that debate was initiated with a presentation.
Three lCD screens were installed in the State Assembly and one in the State legislative council for the members to watch the presentation with the graphics and pictures on the availability of water in different rivers and various ongoing irrigation projects.
Chief Minister Rao,who made the presentation sitting in his chair with the permission of the Speaker, stressed that the State had suffered a lot of injustice in the sharing of water by the other neighbouring States.
He started the presentation with a Google Map showing the large number of barrages built by neighbouring Karnataka and Maharashtra on the rivers Godavari, and Krishna and their tributaries eating in to the share of Telangana waters.
On the rivers Godavari and Krishna and their tributaries Karnataka and Maharashtra had built 480 barrages, he said adding that his Government had to redesign the irrigation projects to ensure optimum utilisation of water.
He said that Telagnana suffered the discrimination and injustice in the united Andhra Pradesh in terms of share in the river waters and now the time had come for to undo it. “After 58 years of rule under united Andhra Pradesh only 19 lakh acres of land in Telangana was irrigated”, he said. This is a sufficient evidence to show what kind of misery the region had suffered under the rule of united Andhra Pradesh, he said.
KCR said that the rulers in the past designed the irrigation projects in Telangana in such a way that they created inter State disputes and the projects were delayed. He said that the disputes over the irrigation projects should be avoided and all the State should cooperate with each other.
KCR stressed that the State will utilise its right over 954 tmc ft of Godavari waters at any cost.
“Our Government is committed to turn the Telangana in to lush green and prosperous State by irrigation one crore acres of land”, KCR said.
Pointing out that his Government has earmarked Rs 25000 crore in this year’s budget for the irrigation sector, Chief Minister announced that Rs 5000 crore will be increased to this Budget next year.
KCR also extended some advice to his Andhra Pradesh counterpart N Chandrababu Naidu and said that he will send a pen drive with this presentation so he also knows the ground realities of the irrigation projects in the State.
He congratulated Chandrababu on the Pattiseema lift irrigation project and said that it would have been better for Andhra Pradesh if it had built smaller barrages instead of a massive project like Polavaram to utilise the Godavari waters.
KCR said that some of the projects of Maharashtra pose a threat to both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. He pointed out that Maharashtra had built 31 barrages on Penganga river and another 9 projects were being built impounding 1300 tmc ft of water which should have come to Telangana, he said.
Earlier the leader of Opposition K Jana Reddy wrote a letter to the Speaker Madhusudhana Chary taking objection to the audi visual presentation in the legislature saying such a thing had no precedence.
The BJP members were however present in the House during the presentation.