Take over Babhali, TDP urges Centre

The Telugu Desam party (TDP) has demanded that the Babhali irrigation project in Maharashtra should be taken over by the Central Government to protect the interests of the farmers of Andhra Pradesh. Speaking to reporters here today, party MLA E Dayakar Rao said that the Maharashtra Government had erected crest gates to the dam on the Godavari yesterday and released photographs to to prove his charge.

He alleged that though the Telugu Desam had been making a hue and cry over the construction of Babhali across Godavari river by the Maharashtra Government, the Congress Government in the State had turned a deaf ear to it and remained unconcerned.

“The construction of Babhali was taken up by a contracting firm whose owner is very close to Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy. Though the chief minister has been aware of the illegal construction, he kept quiet all these years,’’ the Opposition legislator alleged.

Rao asserted that the construction of Babhali project was began only after the Congress came to power in the State in 2004. The chief minister was shedding crocodile tears after the Maharashtra Government completed the construction of the project, Dayakar Rao alleged.

When TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu petitioned the prime minister and the President over Babhali, the Union minister for water resources wanted both the governments of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradehs to sort out the dispute amicably. But no meeting was arranged between these two States, Dayakar Rao alleged.

The TDP MLA demanded that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should intervene at least now and see that Andhra Pradesh’s interests were protected.

Dayakar Rao said that the construction of Babhali was detrimental to the interests of farmers in six districts of the Telangana region.

However, the Congress leaders tried to hoodwink the people of Telangana by saying that Maharashtra was constructing check-dams for drinking water use and there would be no harm to the Telangana region, Dayakar Rao charged.