Telugu Desam Party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu has been saying that his government would complete the Polavaram major irrigation project on Godavari river at any cost by December 2019, even if the Centre does not cooperate.
It is really surprising because the Polavaram is a national project and as per the AP Reorganisation Act, the entire funding has to be done by the Centre, except for power generation part of it.
Secondly, there is no guarantee that Naidu would be in power after May 2019 and if he goes on borrowing money from financial institutions to take up the project, the burden would fall on the next government and in turn on the people.
That is why YSR Congress party has demanded that Naidu should make it clear as to how he would mobilize the funds for the completion of Polavaram project. It warned against shifting the burden on the people in the form of additional taxes.
Senior YSRC leader and MP Mekapati Rajamohan Reddy said as a matter of fact, the Polavaram project should not have been taken up by the state government as the Centre had assured that it would take the responsibility of completing it.
“Naidu took over the project for the sake of commission and skipped the deadline. He has set another one which looks ambitious. He had first said in 2014 that he would complete the project in three years and he has been changing deadlines,” he said.
He asked Naidu to tell people as to how he would mobilize the funds to complete the works within the short time and we warn him that people should not be taxed for his folly.
“The amount spent for the project so far was Rs 13,500 crores and the estimate was about Rs 58,000 crores. Where from will Chandrababu Naidu get that much of amount, as there is no way of inflow of funds and the responsibility rests on the Chief Minister to bring the funds,” he said.
He has just completed a diaphragm wall and dedicated it to the nation with a tall claim that he has completed the total project while it was YSR who has done nearly 40 per cent of the work that was on display now.
“Had the great leader been alive the Project would have been completed by now,” he said.
