Naidu meets Jaitley in Delhi, presses need for urgent release of funds for Polavaram project

VIJAYAWADA: With just a year and a half left for next elections, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, who is in Delhi, lost no time in pushing forward discussions on the Polavaram project.
The Chief Minister called on Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday and brought to the notice of the Centre the urgency of releasing funds for the project to ensure its completion by 2019. The revised estimate of the project is `58,319.06 crore (2013-14). The estimate in 2010-2011 was `16,010.45.

Naidu reiterated that it was the responsibility of the Centre to fund project fully and bear expenses for the rehabilitation of people in accordance with the Land Acquisition Act, 2013.  He reminded Jaitley that the Polavaram project was declared a national project in 2014 and therefore the rehabilitation burden lay solely on the Centre.

The Chief Minister is keen on completing the multi-purpose Polavaram project before going to elections in 2019. To speed up the venture, he took away `1,000 cr worth of work from main contractor Transstroy which has been running in losses. Though Union Water Resources Minister Nitin Gadkari had suggested that the Andhra Pradesh government continue work with Transstroy, the state Cabinet which met on Wednesday, disqualified Transstroy from doing a chunk of the project work. The ground is now set for calling fresh tenders to award the work to another contractor.

Despite the fact that roping in another contractor will push costs up by `300 crore, the government is going ahead with it as it is keen on completing the construction of at least the coffer dam by next election.While speaking with Jaitley, the Chief Minister also sought to know when the special package announced to the state in lieu of Special Category Status would be given. In an interaction with mediapersons after the meet, the TDP chief described how important the Polavaram project was by referring to the last Cabinet meeting of the UPA -II and the first Cabinet meeting of the NDA which had long discussions on the scheme.

“As it is a prestigious project, the state government is doing everything to rush works. As the paucity of money should not become a hurdle, I appealed to the Centre to increase the flow of funds. If we fail to complete Polavaram now, it will never be completed,’’ he said.The state government has so far spent `12, 465 crore on the project and is yet to get `3,000.50 crore from the Centre.