Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on Wednesday took to Twitter to showcase the Polavaram project even as the Centre continued to put obstacles in the path of the State government.
He tweeted a 2.2-minute video giving the cost, the benefit and the unique features of the multi-purpose project.
Unique features
The tweet in Telugu said the “prestigious multi-purpose project” with unique features like diaphragm wall, earth-cum-rock filled dam and huge radial gates was the future of the State.
It mentioned the estimated cost as ₹58,319 crore and May 2019 as the deadline for completion. The cost was higher than the revised one sent to the Centre for approval.
National project
The dam was declared a national project at the time of the bifurcation and provided legal sanctity by being included in the Re-organisation Act.
The estimated cost as per the 2010-11 price level was ₹16,010.45 crore. The State government was entrusted with the completion though it was a national one. According to the agreement, the State government would build and the Centre would pay for it.
Keeping in mind the cost escalation, the State government revised the cost to ₹57,940.86 crore as per the price levels of 2013-14 which the Centre had not approved of. The approval of the second detailed project report (DPR-2) was also pending with the Centre. The lion’s share of the project cost escalation had been put down for the land acquisition (LA) and rehabilitation and resettlement (R&R). The two accounted for ₹33,225.74 crore as per the 2013-14 price levels.
More than ₹3,000 cr. due
The Centre was also taking its time to release funds spent by the State and it had to repay ₹3,342.40 crore till now.
Of the ₹15,205.33 crore spent till date, ₹5,135 crore was spent before Polavaram was declared a national project and ₹10,069 crore afterwards, but the Centre had reimbursed only ₹6,727 crore.
The State government had also upped the ante by fixing the deadline as 2019 end. It announced that water would be diverted into the canals even before the completion of the dam using the cofferdam.