Ministry of Jal Shakti has expressed its disagreement over the Andhra government’s decision to scrap existing project tenders.
Hyderabad: The all-powerful Ministry of Jal Shakti of the Central government has expressed its disagreement with the YSR Congress government in Andhra Pradesh over scrapping of existing tenders of the Polavaram Irrigation Project across Godavari River. The Polavaram multipurpose project, costing around Rs 55,000 crore, is a national project solely funded by the Central government.
Union Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Shekhawat whom Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy called on early this week has expressed his views to this extent, saying that the Centre would take a decision over cancellation of tenders of Polavaram in the best interests of AP. “Whatever is good for Andhra Pradesh will be good for us too, we will decide accordingly,” said Shekhawat after meeting Jagan in Delhi on Tuesday.
This may spark a standoff between the Centre and Andhra government on Polavaram project, perhaps the last such mega irrigation project to be funded by the Government of India, with enough political connotations.
The Centre’s stand is based on a report sent by the Polavaram Project Authority (PPA), a wing set up by the Ministry of Jal Shakti to oversee the execution of the project since 2014. The PPA head office in Hyderabad keeps track of the progress of works and sends its reports periodically for release of funds from the Centre to the state.
On 13 August, PPA CEO R.K. Jain, in his 22-page confidential report to the Ministry of Jal Shakti, clearly differed with the Jagan government’s decision to cancel the tenders and call for reverse tendering. Even Shekhawat told the Parliament before that cancellation of tenders would lead to indefinite delay in the project completion, as against earlier deadline of completion by 2021.
In July end, the Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy government scrapped the tenders of Navayuga Constructions which is currently executing the project and called for fresh bids under a process called “Reverse tenders”. Under this “Reverse tendering”, the irrigation department intends to save around Rs 6,000 crore on the works carried out by Navayuga Constructions.
However, Navayuga Constructions went to the Andhra Pradesh High Court and obtained a stay on the cancellation of their tenders and calling for fresh bids too. Navayuga Constructions, got the contract three years ago, by the previous TDP government. The Jagan government which has set up a probe into all projects which were awarded by the ousted Chandrababu Naidu regime stalled all the deals.
The project compounds around 300 tmc of water that goes waste into the Bay of Bengal, and is expected to irrigate 20 lakh acres of existing and new ayacut in parched areas of Andhra. The project has been made a national project in the Andhra Pradesh Reorganization Act 2014 that split the combined state into Andhra and Telangana. Though this is national project, its execution has been left to the state government.
The previous Naidu-led TDP government too took some decisions on change of contractors of the project—from Transstroy to Navayuga Constructions—and the same was objected by the then Union minister water resources minister Nitin Gadkari.
However, the TDP government went ahead with the change. The same situation has arisen now with the Jagan government again changing the contractors, this time replacing Navayuga Constructions with a new one. Sources in PPA told this newspaper that this time the Ministry of Jal Shakti might not keep quiet and put its foot down on unnecessary changes in the financial and technical aspects of the project.
“The Polavaram project is a not a toy to be played with by successive governments in Andhra Pradesh for their political considerations. Any decision on changing contractors or technical specifications would have an impact on the total budget and time delays. The Centre cannot sit and watch the drama which is purely political in nature and allow the costly delays,” said a senior functionary of PPA.
These comments might sound harsh and straight. However, the situation is inexorably moving towards a confrontation between the BJP-led Centre and YSR Congress led-AP government. Unless the state mends its ways, the Ministry of Jal Shakti might step in to set right the course. One possible course is the PPA being given some say in day-to-day execution of the project, sources said.
However, the irrigation officials of the Andhra Pradesh government clarified that there won’t be any confrontation with the Centre on this issue.
“After all, we are keeping the Centre abreast of the developments and our reverse tendering is only intended to cut the costs. We will at any cost re-start the project works from October and finish it by the end of 20121,” a senior chief engineer of Polavaram said.