Harish Rao visits SLBC accident site, blames govt. for accident

Opposition BRS delegation criticizes Congress government's handling of Srisailam tunnel incident, highlighting lack of rescue efforts and planning.

HYDERABAD

A delegation of the Opposition Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) visited the Srisailam Left Bank Canal (SLBC) tunnel on Thursday and alleged that the Congress government is blaming the previous BRS rule for the present incident.

Led by former minister for Irrigation T. Harish Rao, the delegation was not allowed by the police initially but after a brief protest, 10 members were allowed go inside the tunnel.

Speaking at the tunnel, Mr. Harish Rao alleged that they did not visit the site for five days with an intention not to disturb the rescue work. The government had no proper plan and had failed to give proper directions to the rescue teams.

Not even an attempt was made to send fresh air (oxygen) beyond the debris, where the 8 persons are suspected to be trapped, by inserting a pipe through the debris as the provision in place – fresh air pipe – was damaged due to the debris. Mr. Harish Rao stated that they had taken up dewatering when it was 10,000 litres per minute before resuming the work after formation of Telangana by sparing ₹1.5 crore every month on dewatering itself.

Further, Mr. Harish Rao said the BRS government had excavated about 12 km of the tunnel by replacing the bearings of the tunnel boring machines (TBM) working on either sides. In terms of expenditure too, the BRS government had spent ₹3,900 crore against ₹3,300 crore spent by the Congress government during 2005-14 period.