28,500 cr required for land, resettlement, says Minister

Amaravati: The Polavaram Project now needs another Rs 28,500 crore for the purpose of land acquisition, rehabilitation and resettlement out of the total cost of Rs 32,000 crore. 

The State government has submitted the fund requirement details to the Union Water Resources Ministry and Central Water Commission, Minister for Water Resources Devineni Uma Maheswara Rao told the members of the Assembly on Tuesday. The State government spent Rs 4,020 crore for land acquisition and rehabilitation purpose, he said. 

Answering a question during the Question Hour, he said that total 1,62,732 acres were required for the completion of Polavaram Project out of which 60,250 acres have already been acquired.

Explaining the importance of Polavaram Project to the members, he said that Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu so far reviewed the project progress with the officials and engineers concerned 53 times. The Polavaram works are being reviewed every Monday, he said and added that he was also giving out the details pertaining to the progress of works once every week.

The detailed project report was first prepared in 1941 and the cost of project works at that time was estimated to be Rs 128 crore. He said that only Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu could successfully ground the project works. He pointed out that three Chief Ministers of the Congress party had failed to ground the works in the past.

Now the officials of Irrigation department are submitting the details of developments to the Centre at every step, he said. The project would be completed according to the plans by 2019, he reiterated.

Pithapuram MLA Varma asked the government to make an announcement over the fund release from the Centre and present requirements. He requested the government to reveal the details on how it planned to complete the project by 2019. 

Answering another question, Uma said that the Gajuladinne Project sluice works would be completed soon. He wondered as to how the Opposition leader YS Jaganmohan Reddy made false statement during his recent visit to Kurnool district. He asked Jagan as to how he would take up construction of an already completed project.