Hyderabad: Former chief engineer of Central Designs Organisation ( CDO ) of state irrigation department , A Narender Reddy , has told the Justice PC Ghose commission of inquiry (CoI) that he had approved the designs of Medigadda barrage under pressure from then chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and then irrigation minister T Harish Rao. Narender, along with former engineer-in-chief C Muralidhar, appeared before the Justice PC Ghose CoI on Medigadda, Annaram, and Sundilla barrages on Thursday. The commission began cross-examination of officials on Wednesday.
Narender also said that he did not sign the draft design drawings before sending them to the state govt for clearance. He said the design of Medigadda were submitted by CDO and L&T company jointly to the govt. These were prepared based on the location of the barrage, and L&T participated in every meeting on design for the barrage, he told the CoI.
When the CoI questioned why procedures were not followed in design approval, Narender said he was forced to sign due to pressure from the govt and department. He told the commission that he was not invited to meetings on Kaleshwaram design. He said he had approved the design on the directions of the department and the govt.
He also admitted there were mistakes while executing the project. Both L&T and field-level officers did not follow rules and precautions needed to be taken during monsoon, and quality checks were also not done properly, he said. We also published the followin.