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the Assembly gate clash

Analysis

Pumps on. Credit? Hotly contested.

MGKL motors reportedly whirred to life at Ellur, Jonnalaboguda and Gudipalli. The Congress government throws switches in August; the BRS says it took a shove. The numbers are thin, the timing is not.

By Ctrl Alt DebateAgricultureJayashankar Bhupalpally
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Three large irrigation pump motors beside a Telangana reservoir, with switches, pipes and paperwork arranged around them while an empty farm channel extends into the background.

The pumps are running; the operating log is still awaited.

Illustration generated from an editorial brief

Three Mahatma Gandhi Kalwakurthy LIS sites — Ellur, Jonnalaboguda and Gudipalli — reportedly had motors started this week, with three running at Ellur, two at Jonnalaboguda and three at Gudipalli Stage III. The report pegs discharge from three motors at 1,250 cusecs into the reservoir, citing unnamed “official calculations.” (Namasthe Telangana, Aug 9.)

That the scheme needed care is not new. In June, Irrigation Minister N. Uttam Kumar Reddy told officials to repair MGKL pumping stations and make all motors fully operational by March 2027 — an admission that work remained. The Chief Minister’s June review also asked for speed on Palamuru packages. Targets and reviews are nice; water in Palamuru is nicer.

Who gets the credit is where the fight is. A Telugu daily says the switches flipped after BRS leaders — S. Niranjan Reddy and V. Srinivas Goud — warned of mobilising farmers and besieging project sites under K. T. Rama Rao’s lead. The causal link is their account; the Congress government has not bothered to explain why the pumps waited till now, what changed this week, or which reservoirs and ayacuts are being served.

What we still do not have from the government: dates and times for each start, named officials on the 1,250-cusec figure, pre- and post-pumping reservoir levels, and whether the current operation is for drinking, irrigation or just impounding. Also missing: a field report that water actually reached farms.

The BJP will do what it does best here — tweet from Delhi and claim the rain. The TDP’s contribution to Palamuru remains precisely what it was when it ran Andhra: a lecture from across the border. If the Congress government in Telangana wants this win, it can try a simpler move than spin — publish the operating log and the storage rise.

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