more-in Telangana government has reiterated its stand on the interlinking of rivers, particularly linking of Godavari-Penna-Cauvery, that it has no objection to diverting the water available in excess of its needs of 954 tmc ft, which is also its assured allocation. Minister for Irrigation T. Harish Rao, who participated in the 32nd annual general meeting of National Water Development Agency Society and the 15th meeting of Special Committee for Interlinking of Rivers held in New Delhi on Monday, however, opposed preparation of detailed project report on the Godavari-Penna-Cauvery linking without giving hydrological clearances to Telangana's projects. He told the meeting chaired by Union Water Resources Minister Nitin J. Gadkari that the Centre could work on interlinking after completion of water allocation to Telangana and Andhra Pradesh in the Krishna basin. The view of the State were also given in writing to the Centre and the special committee, he noted. Seetharama project Mr. Harish Rao requested the Union Minister to help Seetharama lift irrigation project, the redesigned version after integrating Indirasagar and Rajivsagar projects proposed in the past, get clearances swiftly. Referring to the Union Minister's recent announcement in Parliament that the Centre had taken in-principle decision against giving national status to any project in any State henceforth, Mr. Rao said the Centre should at least provide funding to Kaleshwaram in 60:40 (Centre:State) ratio. Further, he sought the Centre’s help on the lines of assistance (grant) being given to some projects in Maharashtra to some projects in Telangana. Pat for engineers Highlighting the hard work being put in by irrigation engineers in Telangana - both in the construction and management of projects, the Minister explained how their alertness had avoided two major disasters recently. He stated that the engineers had operated (lifted) the spillway gates of Sathnala medium irrigation project in Adilabad district when the inflows were beyond the project’s capacity and the generator to operate the gates had a problem after being hit by lightning. In another incident at Kaddam project, the engineers had struggled hard to lift one of the spillway gates which had developed a snag.

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