The sharp comments made by Union minister for Jal Shakti Gajendra Singh Shekhawat on the breach of Annamayya project reservoir at Rajampet in Kadapa district on the fateful night of November 18 has come as a major embarrassment to the Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy government in Andhra Pradesh.
While speaking on the dam safety bill in Rajya Sabha on Friday, Shekhawat said the dam got breached due to the failure of the Andhra Pradesh government in ensuring the dam safety.
He pointed out that one of the gates of the reservoir failed to open during the floods, as a result of which the earthen bund got breached and floods gushed into the adjacent villages.
“As many as 33 people were washed away and there was a destruction of massive properties. Who is responsible for this deluge? Is it not the failure of the state government?” he asked.
He said the Annamayya project incident brought a bad name to the country.
“If engineers of other countries want to study why Annamayya dam breached, it shows our failure,” Shekhawat said.
The YSR Congress government suspects that it was Rajya Sabha member C M Ramesh, who defected from the TDP to the BJP, who was behind the Union minister’s outburst against the Jagan government.
“Ramesh and another defector MP Y S Chowdary, are right behind Shekhwat in Rajya Sabha. They must have given the wrong information to the Union minister, who made baseless allegations against the state government,” state irrigation minister P Anil Kumar said.
He said the Annamayya project suffered breaches due to sudden inflow of floods from upstream in a span of one and a half hour. The project gates could not withstand such a huge flood.
“All the gates were functional, but because of the heavy floods, there was a pressure on the bund and it breached,” he explained.
