A video on the Sunkishala Project’s retaining wall collapsing was shared on social media platforms. Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) blamed Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy for the incident.
| Photo Credit: By Arrangement
The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) has blamed Telangana Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy, who also handles the Municipal Administration portfolio, for the collapse of the retaining wall of the Sunkishala Project taken up for supply of drinking water to Hyderabad along with habitations en route in Nalgonda and Rangareddy district as also to meet the industrial needs.
Addressing a press conference in Hyderabad on Friday (August 9, 2024), working president of the BRS K.T. Rama Rao, party legislators and former minister Talasani Srinivas Yadav, Md. Mahamood Ali and P. Sabitha Indra Reddy and MLA K.P. Vivekanand said that the incident had taken place due to lack of proper supervision of the project works despite the caution of the Hyderabad Water Works engineers not to take up fixing up of gates during the flood season.
Inquiry by sitting or retired judge demanded
They demanded that the government order an inquiry into the incident, involving the public exchequer, with a sitting or retired judge and the announcement be made by Deputy Chief Minister M. Bhatti Vikramarka during his reported scheduled visit to the incident site. The BRS leaders said that there was no loss of life in the incident as it happened during the time when workers’ change shifts.
Terming the incident as a result of lack of responsibility & failure of the Chief Minister and the government, Mr. Rao said it had taken place when the Assembly was in session, on August 2 morning, but the government hid it from people and the Assembly though it was a practice to make announcements on any major incidents in the House. The Chief Minister left for the U.S. tour 24 hours after the incident.
In case, there was no fault of the government in the incident, why it was kept a secret for a week till it came out through social media and now trying to blame the previous (BRS) government, he questioned the government. Mr. Rao demanded that the government keep the agency executing the work in blacklist till the inquiry was over, if the government was sincere about the incident.
Asking the government not to order a departmental inquiry and institute a judicial probe, he mentioned that both the Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had demanded probe by a national agency when the Medigadda incident had taken place and the National Dam Safety Authority (NDSA) was swift in giving its report.
Mr. Rama Rao alleged that it had become a practice for the Congress Government in its nine-month journey to claim everything that results in good as its success and anything that turns bad as failure of the previous government. He cited the example of how the present government claimed credit for giving appointment letters to 30,000 jobs, though the recruitment process was completed during the BRS regime.
He stated that Sunkishala drinking water project was not a new idea but was initially planned by Kotla Vijaya Bhaskara Reddy Government, but was shelved after farmers’ protests in which a Sub-Inspector of Police was also reportedly killed. Later, N. Chandrababu Naidu and Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy Governments too had considered it but did not take it forward due to farmers’ protests.
