Union Water Resources Minister Nitin Gadkari has rejected the proposal of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu to change the contractor firm of the multipurpose irrigation project across River Godavari, Polavaram. Naidu wanted to replace the contractors, Transstroy India, with another firm for speedy completion of the project ahead of the 2019 elections.
Gadkari also objected to the costs of the project that have spiralled from Rs 15,500 crore to around Rs 52,000 crore, mainly due to delay in implementing the relief and rehabilitation (R&R) of the displaced people. Gadkari declined to reimburse the R&R component, which has increased from Rs 2,934 crore in 2008 to Rs 33,858 crore now. The Polavaram project, benefiting Andhra Pradesh, has been made a national project as per the Andhra Pradesh Reorganization Act, 2014, which stipulates that the Centre should fund its entire cost of construction. As per a special package announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last July, the Centrw had authorised the state government to construct the project and had agreed to reimburse the money.
Now that the Union Water Resources Ministry, which is the nodal agency for the project at the Centre, and the TDP government in AP are at loggerheads over the termination of contractors, assessment of R&R component, the matter will be heard by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and finally go to the PM for his last word, as per sources in AP irrigation department who spoke to this newspaper.
Gadkari turned down the request on the ground that any change of contractors would lead to escalation in the project cost and further delays as the aggrieved party might approach courts and seek compensation. Interestingly, the Transstroy India belongs to the ruling Telugu Desam Party’s MP Rayapati Sambasiva Rao.
Sambasiva Rao, a Congress MP between 2009 and 2014, bagged this prestigious contract for Transstroty from the Congress government led by N. Kiran Kumar Reddy in 2012, for an amount of Rs 7,500 crore, to build the spillway and cement works of the dam.
Since 2016 October, Naidu made it a point to visit the dam site in East Godavari district every Monday by helicopter and review the progress of works. However, he was disappointed over the slow pace of the work by Transstroy which has defaulted huge sums of money to its sub-contractors which include L&T among five other firms. Transstroy also has several legal and financial disputes with its sub-lessees.
When Naidu in July this year took stock of the situation, he found that it was just impossible to finish the project before 2019 elections, thus belying his promise to people. Opposition YSR Congress leader Jagan has already been attacking Naidu, saying he cannot complete Polavaram as well as Amaravati on time, due to his “inefficiency” and “corrupt practices”.
Naidu instructed Transstroy to speed up works and finish the project by the end of March 2019, but the firm threw off its hands saying that it needed extra funds to sort out certain legal problems.
On 25 October, Gadkari held a meeting in New Delhi and told the Andhra Pradesh Irrigation Minister Devineni Umamaheswara Rao that the Centre would do whatever it can to complete the project by 2019, but it was the duty of the state government to get things done by the contractors. CM Naidu has, however, expressed optimism that the FM and the PM would come to his rescue as Polavaram was a joint poll plank of the TDP-BJP in the last elections.