Written by Rahul V PisharodyHyderabad | Updated: November 13, 2025 10:19 AM IST 4 min readThe Telangana Government has, in a counter-affidavit filed before the High Court, reiterated that the decision to construct the three barrages for Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project (KLIP), which caused serious loss to the exchequer “to the tune of thousands of crores” was the “sole and individual responsibility of the then chief minister and then minister for Irrigation” and not the collective decision of the Council of Ministers.Urging the vacation of a stay order secured by former chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao, the affidavit, dated October 23, asserted that the inquiry, headed by retired Supreme Court Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose, found “grave irregularities across conceptualization, planning, design, construction, award of contract, execution, O&M, quality control, and financial mismanagement” in the construction of the Medigadda, Annaram, and Sundilla barrages.The inquiry was necessitated by the structural collapse of Medigadda pillars on October 21, 2023.The affidavit cited preliminary findings of the National Dam Safety Authority (NDSA), which reported the sinking was due to a “combination of issues involving lacunae and negligence in planning, design, quality control, and Operation and Maintenance (O&M) of the barrage”. It stated that the Medigadda structure was “useless until fully rehabilitated.”The state’s counter affidavit also claimed that the expert committee’s report of January 2015 had “explicitly warned against constructing the barrage at Medigadda, finding it ‘not advisable and also not economical’. Stating that this was “intentionally suppressed and kept in cold storage to advance the preferred site location, the affidavit blamed KCR for being “complicit in this suppression”.The affidavit stated that the “critical Administrative Approvals (AAs) for the construction of Medigadda, Annaram, and Sundilla barrages (G.O.Rt. Nos. 231, 232, and 233, all dated 01.03.2016) were never placed before or ratified by the Council of Ministers.” It notes that this alleged negligence resulted in a huge financial loss to the State exchequer of “more than 7500 Crores of rupees” from the site shift and tunnel works alone.It added that Administrative Approvals for construction were “precipitously granted on 01.03.2016, approximately eleven months before the Detailed Project Report (DPR) was formally submitted to the Central Water Commission (CWC) for vetting (22.02.2017).”Story continues below this adThe affidavit stated that the sequence of events proves that the construction decisions were made before the requisite technical scrutiny by the Central Government agencies.The affidavit also highlighted that subsequent Revised Administrative Approvals were issued with “malicious intention” to favour agencies, granting unjustified Extensions of Time (EOTs) “in a callous manner” and transferring contractor costs to the state.The P C Ghose Commission of Inquiry that probed the anomalies of the project recommended that amounts “wrongfully and illegally paid to the agencies with malicious intention to unduly benefit” should be recovered, jointly and severally, from the responsible officials and agencies, the affidavit pointed out.‘Agencies failed to address defects during O&M period’Story continues below this adThe affidavit also alleged that the agencies failed to address the defects during the five-year O&M period, and there was “absolutely no operation and maintenance” of the barrages, with no agreed O&M manuals or agreements. It blamed “continuous impounding of water as directed by the then Chief Minister” for the distress.In conclusion, it added that the findings in the report are based on government records and that the decision of the state to hand over the investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was only to ensure that the due process of law is followed.The affidavit also maintained that the P C Ghose Commission has complied with section 8B of the Commission of Inquiries Act, giving opportunity to the petitioners to be heard. It held that the petitioners’ contention that they were not given an opportunity is nothing more than an unmeritorious afterthought raised only after the commission’s adverse findings were revealed.Rahul V Pisharody is Assistant Editor with the Indian Express Online and has been reporting for IE on various news developments from Telangana since 2019. He is currently reporting on legal matters from the Telangana High Court. Rahul started his career as a journalist in 2011 with The New Indian Express and worked in different roles at the Hyderabad bureau for over 8 years. As Deputy Metro Editor, he was in charge of the Hyderabad bureau of the newspaper and coordinated with the team of city reporters, district correspondents, other centres and internet desk for over three years. A native of Palakkad in Kerala, Rahul has a Master's degree in Communication (Print and New Media) from the University of Hyderabad and a Bachelor's degree in Business Management from PSG College of Arts and Science, Coimbatore. ... Read More© The Indian Express Pvt LtdTags:telangana