Delaying tactic by Centre: Babu

Amaravati: Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Thursday interpreted Union Water Resources Minister Nitin Gadkari’s assertion that the state has to justify cost escalation, to its request for quick release of funds for Polavaram Project, as a tactic to further delay the project.

The Chief Minister, while addressing the party general body meeting at his residence at Undavalli here, said that there could be no other explanation than to think that they were delaying the project as they were raising doubts over the genuineness of the second detailed project report two years after its submission to them.

The BJP leader was now saying that the state had increased the extent of land to be acquired for the Project and the cost of Rehabilitation and Resettlement package when the state sought for funding the project without any delay. Naidu said that bill for R and R package has gone up because of the Land Acquisition Act 2013 and the state government was no way responsible for that.

In addition to this, the Centre should know that requirement of the land will also go up when the height of the project is raised as the area of submergence becomes much wider. Hence, the Central government has the responsibility of paying compensation to the all the oustees of the project. He recalled that a majority of the oustees were tribals.

Referring to the move of simultaneous elections, Naidu said that though the TDP was not against simultaneous polls it, however, opposed BJP’s hidden agenda in it. The BJP is trying to take political advantage by holding simultaneous elections at the cost of the interests of the regional parties. “I will organise at least 100 public meetings within the next four months to expose the BJP,” he said.

TDP general secretary Nara Lokesh said that the party has 70 lakh members. He explained that only 5,000 booth level committees are pending to be constituted of the total 42,000 booths in the state. He said that the remaining both level committees also will be appointed by this month end. Booth level convenors need to be appointed for Anantapur, Kadapa and Nandyal Lok Sabha constituencies, he said.