A farmer crisis rooted not in drought but in deliberate delay — that is the charge BRS working president K. T. Rama Rao levelled at the Congress government in Telangana on Friday, 16 October 2026, posting a video of the towering pumps at the Narlapur Pump House and asking why they sat idle for the better part of this monsoon season.

Posting in Telugu, KTR pointed to the Narlapur Pump House, part of the Palamuru-Rangareddy Lift Irrigation Project — a flagship BRS-era infrastructure project built under former Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao. The facility houses 145-megawatt pumps that, KTR claimed, are the largest irrigation pumps anywhere in the world. 'These are not the scarcity of the season — this is the scarcity Congress brought,' he said, using the phrase 'కాలం తెచ్చిన కరువు కాదు, కాంగ్రెస్ తెచ్చిన కరువు' ('not a drought brought by time, but a drought brought by Congress').

Inflows, Inaction, and a 76-Day Window

According to KTR's post, inflows into the Srisailam Reservoir on the Krishna River began on 29 July this year. He alleged that the Revanth Reddy government remained inactive for 76 days — dismissing it with the phrase 'కుంభకర్ణ నిద్ర' ('Kumbhakarna's sleep,' a reference to deep, ruinous slumber from the Ramayana) — before finally starting pumping operations at Narlapur recently, only after repeated BRS demands.

Had pumping begun when floodwaters first arrived, KTR argued, Telangana could have lifted approximately 40 TMC (thousand million cubic feet) of water — enough to irrigate nearly four lakh acres of farmland. The state's farmers, he said, are now paying the price of that inaction with acute irrigation shortages this season.

The Credit War Behind the Water War

KTR did not stop at operational failure — he attached a motive. The Revanth Reddy government, he alleged, deliberately withheld pumping to deny political credit to KCR, whose name is synonymous with the project. 'The conspiracy here was simply that KCR should not get credit,' he stated directly.

The accusation fits a pattern that has defined Telangana politics since the December 2023 assembly elections swept Congress to power. The two parties have traded blame repeatedly over the operation and upkeep of BRS-era irrigation assets — projects that were built at enormous cost and carry significant electoral weight in drought-prone rural constituencies like Mahbubnagar and Rangareddy. Water release decisions on the Krishna basin have become a recurring flashpoint, with farmers caught between political positioning and parched fields.

What the Narlapur Project Represents

The Palamuru-Rangareddy Lift Irrigation Project was constructed between 2015 and 2023 as part of the BRS government's ambitious Krishna basin development programme. Its purpose: to reverse decades of water deprivation in southern Telangana by mechanically lifting river water uphill to rain-shadow districts that gravity-fed canals could never reach. The Narlapur Pump House, with its 145 MW pumping capacity, sits at the heart of that engineering ambition.

With pumping now reportedly under way, attention turns to how much of the season's water can still be captured before reservoir levels recede. Irrigation department data on daily pumping volumes and Srisailam storage levels in the coming weeks will determine whether KTR's 40-TMC counterfactual holds any operational weight — or whether Telangana's farmers face another lean rabi season regardless.