CM YS Jagan unable to complete Polavaram project: Former Minister Devineni Uma Maheswara Rao

Mangalagiri: Former Minister Devineni Uma Maheswara Rao on Sunday slammed Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy for trying to 'abdicate' his responsibility for the deadlock in Polavaram project works.

Uma strongly objected to the Chief Minister instructing the irrigation officials to go to Delhi and get the Central funds for early completion of the project.

Was it not the duty of Jagan Reddy to meet PM Modi and the Union Ministers for getting support for Polavaram, he questioned.

During the TDP rule, former Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu visited New Delhi 29 times and brought all the necessary funds and approvals for completing 71 per cent project works.

Addressing a press conference here, the TDP leader said that Chief Minister Jagan has totally ignored Polavaram and held a review on the project on October 1 after a gap of nearly three months. There was not even a single page in the review note about the efforts being made for implementing the R & R package for the evacuees.

The Chief Minister was not even able to come before the media with facts on the progress of Polavaram works. On the other hand, the officials were being asked to take the responsibility for getting the Central funds. In the past, they promised Polavaram water by June this year.

Now, they were talking about the next kharif. Chief Minister Jagan was confining himself to holding 'jayanthi' and 'vardhanti' celebrations for his father and father-in-law but not interested in the wellbeing and future of the AP people, he said.

The TDP leader said that over 1.10 lakh evacuees were facing an uncertain future because of the negligence of the ruling party leaders. Most of them were Adivasis who did not have proper facilities in evacuee colonies. By June, 2020 itself, the government promised to provide houses for 18,000 dam oustees' families. But no efforts were made in that direction.

Uma recalled how the Chief Minister promised to provide a compensation of Rs 19 lakh per acre during a dharna before 2019. During his pre-poll Padayatra, Jagan Reddy promised to give Rs 10 lakh per acre and implement the 2013 land acquisition act for the Polavaram evacuees. None of those promises have been implemented in the past two-and-half years.

The TDP leader asked why the AP CM was unwilling to take up the Polavaram funds issue with the Prime Minister. Many districts in coastal areas were badly affected in the latest Gulab cyclone. Compensation and relief measures were not initiated anywhere.

The former Minister demanded that the government clarify to the public to whom Rs 550 crore R&R package was paid under the Polavaram resettlement plan. The Chief Minister was abdicating his responsibility and preferring to play just PubG games at his Tadepalli residence.