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Experts order BIL to stop work

KADAPA: The two-member experts team comprising T.S. Prakash Rao, Advisor, Irrigation, and B. V. S. Prakasa Rao, engineer-in-chief, Telugu Ganga project, on Friday directed officials of the Bramhani Industries Limited (BIL) to forthwith stop all their ongoing work on laying a road in the Mylavaram reservoir.

The two experts, who were asked by the government to visit the site and recommend action, issued the directive after inspecting the work being executed by BIL for its steel plant nearby. They also ordered the BIL officials to shift machinery and vehicles they had deployed near the reservoir. The experts said they would submit a report to the government for further action. Congress MLA of Jammalamadugu C. Adinarayana Reddy and former Minister P. Ramasubba Reddy of Telugu Desam Party were present when they inspected the road formed in the reservoir.

A CPI delegation, T. Lakshminarayana, G. Obulesu and P. Krishnamurthy, said after visiting the construction site that the BIL management had resorted to gross violation of the rules. The government permitted the company to draw two tmcft of water, but the BIL management, taking advantage of the close links between its Chairman and Karnataka Tourism Minister Gali Janardhan Reddy with Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, had misused the Government Order.

They said BIL was, in fact, laying two roads to the middle of the reservoir and had taken up construction of intake well in the middle of the water-spread. This facility would draw more water than allocated to BIL, emptying even the dead storage in the reservoir. They criticised engineers concerned for failing to bring the violation to the government’s notice and demanded their transfer, apart from removal of the pipeline and roads laid.

The construction activity would lead to heavy silting of the Mylavaram reservoir, affect water supply to 70,000 acres of land and the Rayalaseema Thermal Power Station.

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