Cabinet cancels tenders and lands given to Navayuga

Amaravati: The AP Cabinet has cancelled the tenders and land given to the Navayuga Engineering Company Ltd, on Wednesday. The cabinet committee meeting is in progress at the Secretariat at Velagapudi village in Guntur district. The Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy headed the cabinet.

In a shocking development for the Navayuga, Jagan cabinet has cancelled the company from the Polavaram Hydro Electric Project worth Rs 3,216 cr. The cabinet also decided to recollect the money released to the company as mobilization advance for construction of the Hydro-Electric project. In fact, the government cancelled the project from the company, as soon as Jagan took the charge as Chief Minister. After that, the Navayuga went to the High Court and took an interim order on it. The HC ordered to hold the reverse tendering process initiated by the State government for the project. At this juncture, the cabinet has taken this decision. Now the Irrigation and Water Resources department is all set to invite reverse tenders for both Polavaram head works as well as the Polavaram Hydro Electric Project. Both these works together amount to more than Rs 5,000 crore. Two tenders will be called together, informed the officials at the Water Resources department.

On the other hand, the cabinet expelled the Navayuga from the Machilipatnam port construction. In fact, the government took this decision earlier. Now, the cabinet gave formal approval for it. The cabinet also cancelled the 412 acres of land allotted to Navayuga at Machilipatnam. The government is in strong belief that there involved corruption in allocating the works to the company, hence the cabinet cancelled the tenders from Navayuga. It is worth to mention here that, the Navayuga yet to commence the works at Machilipatnam port, though the then Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu laid the foundation stone to commence the project in 2018.

The third major decision in the cabinet is approval for the increase in salary of Asha workers. From now onwards, the Asha workers will get at least Rs 10,000 per month as salary. Till 2018, the then government gave only Rs 1800 and then increased to Rs 3000 as salary. Now the state government increased it to Rs 10,000 straight away. There were incentives in the previous government for the Asha workers. They would able to get Rs 6000 to Rs 10000 per month, based on their performance. But, now, they would directly get the Rs 10,000 salary for their service to society.