Not a single Cubic Metre (CuM) of concrete work was done on the Polavaram spillway on March 2. This was because the workers, majority of whom are from North India, stayed away due to Holi festival.
The State government set a target of achieving 1.1 lakh CuM of concrete work in March to the new contractor. That works out to an average of 3,666 lakh CuM a day. The new agency is doing about 2,500 lakh CuM, the same the removed agency Transstroy was doing. The old agency was removed because it could not achieve the target.
The new agency, to begin with, agreed to complete 1.1 lakh CuM, but after the first week it changed its target and said it would be able to complete just 80,000 CuM, that is 30,000 CuM less. The monthly target increases to 1.43 lakh CuM for May.
Monthly targets
The monthly targets for the completion of the spillway by April 2019 have already been fixed. The shortfall will have to be either completed in the following month or distributed over the subsequent months.
This, of course, is the least of the State government’s problems as another agency which does excavation work requested that it be paid ₹90 crore dues. To make things worse, one of the foreign agencies doing jet grouting for the Earth cum Rock Filled (ECRF ) Dam asked the government to fix the rates so that it could raise an invoice for the work done.
The engineers say time is needed to do the “rate analysis” as it has never been done before.
In other words, they are saying no price for this type of jet grouting in the Standard Schedule of Rates (SSR). The Central government has deputed the State government to construct the project though it has been declared a National Project. The former is due a few thousand crores to the latter for the work done. There seems to be an inordinate delay in the reimbursement of funds after proper verification, the official of an agency said.
A bottleneck
There also seems to be a delay in the approval of designs by the Central Water Commission (CWC). The Navayuga Engineering Company Limited (NECL) told Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu that design approval was a bottleneck to the pace of construction. Most of the designs are pending approval with “minor comments by the CWC”.
Agencies that are doing excavation are complaining that they do not have sufficient work front as de-watering is in progress. The levels for excavation have also not been finalised. These are just the obstacles for work at the dam site.
