Ambati trashes resurvey talk on Polavaram

Vijayawada: The Andhra Pradesh government feels that the Telangana government was raising objections over the Polavaram project without any rhyme and reason.

According to AP Irrigation Minister Ambati Rambabu, it was also surprising to hear Telangana Health Minister and former Irrigation Minister T Harish Rao comparing the Kaleshwaram project with Polavaram. He said Kaleshwaram is a two tmcft lift irrigation project while Polavaram is 186 tmcft multipurpose project.

Ambati said submergence was not an issue at all because in the past too whenever heavy floods were there those areas used to get submerged. When the state was united, Irrigation experts, Central Water Commission and all other agencies had conducted detailed survey and had accorded all necessary clearances during the regime of Y S Rajasekhara Reddy. Hence there was no need for any joint survey again, he asserted.

If there was any problem of submergence due to backwaters, the CWC and other agencies would have taken note of it. Even the Andhra Pradesh government would support Telangana if the claims were genuine, he said.

Ambati said though the executing agency was the Andhra Pradesh government, all works are being done under the supervision of the Central government since it was a national project.

He said the TS government had gone to the Supreme Court on the issue of backwaters and the case was still pending in the court. He said the Polavaram Project Authority had convened a meeting of officials of both the states on Wednesday following an interim direction of the Supreme Court that the PPA should hold a bilateral meeting. It also directed that if need be a meeting between the Chief Ministers of both the states also be held to resolve the issue.

Meanwhile, the TS government has been making wrong claims about the project and was trying to project AP in bad light, he added.