Editorial: The kleptocracy of Kaleshwaram

In the rich annals of corruption in Telangana, the Kaleshwaram irrigation project would figure in the first chapter. Such was the magnitude of malfeasance, and such its brazenness, that it stands out as an example of governance abandoned to corruption. The present state government of Revanth Reddy has decided to hand over the investigation of the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation after an inquiry by a retired judge of the Supreme Court found massive irregularities in the project, which cost upwards of Rs 1,00,000 crore but became defunct barely three years after the execution of its headworks.

As with all big projects, Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project on the Pranahita-Godavari rivers was hyped up with big numbers by the Bharata Rashtra Samiti government of K Chandrasekhar Rao, Revanth Reddy’s predecessor. It was advertised as the world’s largest multi-stage irrigation project that would change the fortunes of Telangana by irrigating 16 lakh acres in 13 districts and providing drinking water to Hyderabad. Barrages were constructed at Ramadugu, Medigadda, Sundilla, and Annaram to store water. And as is de rigueur for Indian projects, the cost ballooned from Rs 71,000 crore to more than Rs 1,00,000 crore with much of the canal and pumping works yet to be taken up.

Three years after the barrage at Medigadda was built, just before the 2023 Assembly elections, the piers of the structure sank into the permeable soil, leading to massive flooding downstream. Two other barrages developed cracks due to design flaws and storage of excess water against technical advice. Experts have said repairs would be pointless as the location was unsuitable in the first place. The project has lain defunct since then, with the comptroller and auditor-general ruling that it is economically unviable to even repair or relocate because every rupee spent would return only 52 paise.

The inquiry by Justice Ghose says it was a colossal error to build the barrage at its current location. It was done against all hydrogeological advice and without Central Water Commission clearance. The probe blamed the then chief minister, Chandrasekhar Rao, for insisting on the unsound site and for bypassing the Cabinet entirely. A plethora of other delinquencies compounded these misdeeds, including quality control lapses, use of illegitimate certification, maintenance neglect, and suppression of expert reports.

Kaleshwaram was a rogue operation run by the chief minister with the collusion of a few ministers and bureaucrats. It was the direct outcome of a political culture in which all decision-making is centralised in the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO). The legislature and Cabinet are reduced to spectators, and consultants are inveigled into the bureaucracy to facilitate graft. As the Ghosh Commission found, the irrigation bureaucracy expressed no dissent when elbowed aside; the finance ministry greenlighted borrowing of Rs 87,000 crore without asking questions and disbursed Rs 64,000 crore to contractors—one of whom was the second biggest buyer of electoral bonds.

This style of governance, the concentration of all decision-making in CMOs and the PMO, has taken root in all states and at the Centre. Chief ministers and prime ministers have grown accustomed to functioning without institutional consultation. It’s erroneously called ‘presidential’ but bears a closer resemblance to the world of crime. It signifies the capture of the state by an elected kleptocracy that leaves taxpayers to pick up the tab for generations to come, as now the people of Telangana have to do.