BRS takes Hyderabad’s water shortage to Kaleshwaram as Revanth Reddy asks people to prepare for El Niño

BRS legislators took their charge over Hyderabad’s water shortage to the Kaleshwaram project on Saturday, 24 October. They said the government has not lifted the Godavari water that is available, while Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy has been telling the public to prepare for a long El Niño drought.

What the BRS says

The group included MLAs Devireddy Sudheer Reddy, K.P. Vivekanand, Marri Rajasekhar Reddy and Madhavaram Krishna Rao, with former minister Errabelli Dayakar Rao. They said the available Godavari water has not been lifted, and that repairs to the Kaleshwaram barrages have been delayed by three years.

Vivekanand warned that BRS MLAs would protest outside the Chief Minister’s residence if the drinking-water shortage is not addressed.

What the government says

At an El Niño meeting, Revanth Reddy warned of a prolonged drought-like situation. He said drinking water would face more hardship than irrigation water, and that people have to be made stakeholders in facing it. A sub-committee under Deputy Chief Minister Bhatti Vikramarka is looking at preparations.

BRS spokesperson Ravula Sridhar replied that the Chief Minister is scaring citizens and giving priority to Congress’s political activities, and that meetings and speeches on El Niño will not be enough.

Our view

Whether lifting more Godavari water would ease Hyderabad’s shortage is a technical question, and the two sides answer it in opposite ways. The statements made so far give no official figure for how much water can be lifted, and the government’s El Niño remarks do not address the charge about the idle pumps. Until they do, the exchange stays political.