When the YSR Congress party government headed by Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy announced that the award of contract for Polavaram irrigation and hydro-power projects works to Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Limited (MEIL), it came as no surprise to anybody.
For, MEIL chairman and managing director P V Krishna Reddy has the knack of bagging huge contracts irrespective of the political parties that are in power in the Telugu states.
He doesn’t mind quoting very less rates to wrest the contracts from others, as he has done in the case of Navayuga Engineering in Polavaram works, as he knows how to compensate the losses at a later stage by bagging more works from the government.
Megha Engineering was originally founded by a farmer P P Reddy in 1989 to do small contracts of building pipes for municipalities.
He soon expanded into building infrastructure projects such as dams, natural gas distribution networks, power plants and roads, thanks to his nephew Krishna Reddy, who entered the company in 1991.
Krishna Reddy shot into limelight during the Congress government headed by Y S Rajasekhar Reddy who had launched Jalayagnam, an irrigation mission of taking up several irrigation projects at a time.
Considered to be closer to YSR’s friend K V P Ramachandra Rao, he was the biggest beneficiary of Jalayagnam and made big money through irrigation contracts those days.
After the bifurcation of combined AP, he made friends with both Telugu Desam Party government headed by N Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana Rashtra Samithi government in Telangana headed by K Chandrasekhar Rao.
Krishna Reddy bagged the multi-thousand crore Mission Bhagiratha project in Telangana and also Rs 1500 crore Pattiseema project on Godavari river in Andhra.
The massive contract he had got was Kaleshwaram lift irrigation scheme in Telangana, which is worth nearly Rs one lakh crore at the present rates.
He was felicitated by both Naidu and KCR on several occasions.
Now, he has become closer to Jagan Mohan Reddy as well and managed to bag the contract for Polavaram by quoting Rs 780 crore less than the actual tender value!
