“The Kaleshwaram project has been dragged to snatch Rs 1,00,000 crore from taxpayers’ pocket. We see that pillars of the Kaleshwaram project are falling, Rs 1,00,000 crore was scammed from the people and the project has not been completed yet.” said Rahul Gandhi while addressing a public gathering in Telangana.
In October 2019, Megha Krishna reddy’s Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Limited (MEIL) was raided by the Income Tax Department in connection with the contract for construction of the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project, one of the largest lift irrigation projects, awarded by the Telangana government.
The former MLA and senior BJP leader M. Raghunandan Rao had alleged the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project was the ‘world’s biggest scam’ since Independence in the country. He has requested the Centre to order a CBI probe into the matter. “We fear that there is an effort to limit the project deficiencies and corruption to Medigadda barrage only where the piers have sunk into the ground. It is not fair to target a single company when other big infrastructure companies are involved,” he said.
Rao emphasised that the BRS government had intentionally inflated the project cost from about Rs 63,000 crore to Rs 1.5 lakh crore in the name of project redesign.
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Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme was the biggest scam in India, it was no less than 2G scam or coal scam, then why the BJP government at the Centre failed to take action, questioned the YSR Telangana Party president Y.S Sharmila.
The Congress party in Telangana had even set up a dummy ATM by the roadside and named it ‘Kaleshwaram ATM’ to highlight its allegation of the BRS government. ‘The biggest scam of the century’ was written on the ATM.
Both BJP and the Congress have alleged massive corruption in the Kaleshwaram project. Even the CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General) report on the project had highlighted wrongdoings committed by the government and MEIL.
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The CAG in its report had mentioned gross irregularities in the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation project and said the cost of the project was increased exuberantly.
As per media reports, Kaleshwaram project, of which Medigadda barrage is a component, had failed to provide irrigation water to at least 97,000 acres even after Rs 97,000 crore was spent on it. The Congress had repeatedly raised questions on the repair of the Medigadda barrage, this has unravelled the deep seated corruption in the entire Kaleshwaram project.
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Megha Watch has learnt from sources that MEIL is trying to push the project into a cold storage through environmental litigations. The company had already pocketed a huge amount of advance money from the Telangana government without making much progress in the project.
The Kaleshwaram project is an offshoot of Dr BR Ambedkar Pranahita Chevella Sujala Sravanthi project launched in 2005 by the then chief minister of united Andhra Pradesh, YS Rajesekhara Reddy. After the bifurcation of the state in 2014, Telangana and Maharashtra reached an agreement in 2016 and the original project was redesigned and divided into Dr. BR Ambedkar Pranahita project and Kaleshwaram project.
The redesigning was vehemently opposed by the rival political parties. It was alleged that the redesigning ended up burdening the government exchequer with an additional cost and the government intention was to loot public money.
Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation is just one of many projects, awarded to MEIL, under scanner for corruption and poor quality of work. Interestingly, in spite of so many controversies attached to the company, MEIL continues to get lucrative projects from state governments because of the affinity with the politicians in different political parties.