KTR sets 10-day deadline to Congress govt, threatens padayatra over Nagarjuna Sagar water

BRS working president KT Rama Rao has given the Congress government until September 14 to announce a schedule for releasing Nagarjuna Sagar Left Canal water, warning he will lead a padayatra from Kodad to Haliya with thousands of farmers if the deadline passes without a response.

Addressing a farmers' protest in Miryalaguda on Thursday, Rama Rao said the reservoir held around 180 TMCft of water but the state government was refusing to release any of it through the Left Canal. He tied the deadline to Vinayaka Chavithi and said the proposed march would draw on the 2003 Kodad-Haliya padayatra his father and BRS president K Chandrashekhar Rao had undertaken during the Telangana movement to press farmers' demands.

He also questioned the government's account of water availability in the Krishna basin, citing around 537 feet at Srisailam and flows reaching Nagarjuna Sagar through hydel power generation, and argued there was enough water to irrigate two crops. He accused the Revanth Reddy government of releasing water toward Andhra Pradesh while denying it to Telangana farmers on the Left Canal, and asked whether the chief minister was repaying a political debt to Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu at the state's expense.

Rama Rao also targeted the Congress government's unfulfilled election promises, listing the Rs 2 lakh loan waiver, Rythu Bharosa payments of Rs 15,000 per acre, annual assistance for landless agricultural labourers and a Rs 500 per quintal bonus for paddy and cotton as commitments still pending. He said Rythu Bandhu payments had been withheld for three seasons and urea supplies remained inadequate, and singled out ministers Uttam Kumar Reddy and Komatireddy Venkat Reddy for what he called inaction on the irrigation issue.

He said the BRS would raise the matter when the Assembly session opens on September 7, and would go ahead with the padayatra if there was no clarity on water release by Vinayaka Chavithi.