Will Naidu become Waterman of AP?

After the capital construction in Amaravati, it is the Polavaram project that keeps prominently figuring in the discourses in the corridors of power.

Because, it is the twin projects of Amaravati and Polavaram that can make or mar the winning prospects of the ruling party in the upcoming 2019 General Elections.

AP Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu gave up his high-tech image after his drubbing in 2004 elections and essayed the role of messiah of farmers in the run-up to the 2014 elections.

In a bid to woo the farming community, he broke the record of padayatras with his marathon “Vasthunna Meekosam” campaign covering a long distance of 2,340km with a promise for waiver of farm loans.

During his walkathon, he was flooded with requests from farmers to complete the Polavaram project, an initiative taken up by his bête noir and former Congress Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy more than a decade ago.

In opposition, Naidu depicted the then YSR’s pet scheme of Indira Sagar as a breeding ground for corruption and launched an agitation against the project.

However, he changed his stance vis-à-vis the Polavaram project by the time of 2014 elections in keeping with the public mood.

As they sow, so shall they reap. This maxim came true in the case of the TDP which reaped rich poll dividends with its twin promises – waiver of farm loans and completion of the Polavaram project .

In fact, Polavaram project became a poll plank even in the run-up to the 2004 elections also as late YSR came to power with the promise of realising the dream of Polavaram.

Soon after his assuming charge as the CM, he laid a foundation stone for the project naming it after Indira Gandhi in 2005 with an estimated cost of Rs 10,200 crore.

It became a nobody’s baby after his sudden demise and with the emergence of separate Telangana movement, triggering water wars between Andhra and Telangana regions.
After staging a comeback as Chief Minister for the third time, Naidu is now eager to acquire the image of “waterman” of Andhra Pradesh by accomplishing the task which remained pending for the last one-and-a-half decades.

He has a friendly government at the Centre which came handy for Naidu to secure national status and funds for the mega project. Buoyed by the Pattiseema lift scheme with which he claimed to have been drawing 60tmcft of water from the Godavari for the Krishna delta in a `record time,’ Chandrababu vowed to complete Polavaram by 2018 at `any cost.’

Naidu, who launched spillway works at Polavaram dam site the other day, was seen with a sense of confidence and strong will writ large on his face with regard to the progress of the project in the light of the NDA government’s arrangement for release of Rs 1,981 crore as the first installment of Rs 18,000 crore loan from the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) for reimbursement of the expenses incurred by the State government.

The Centre is in a bind over repaying the Nabard’s loan as per the provisions of the Andhra Pradesh State Reorganisation Act, 2014. If the dam is realised as per the timeline, it will become a lifeline for a huge extent of 63 lakh acres – 23 lakh acres in the Krishna and the Godavari delta, the designed ayacut of 7.2 lakh acres under its right and left main canals, besides 12 lakh acres in the drought-prone Rayalaseema, Maharastra and Kartnataka states by way of transfer of 80 tmcft of the Godavari water into the Krishna river as per the Bachchawat Tribunal’s award.

Obviously, the dream, if realized, will help Naidu build his image as waterman pan-AP.

Will it happen before the deadline, anyway? The CM sought to buy one more year to let it be dedicated to the nation while launching the concrete works of the spillway.

His utterances indicate improbabilities with regard to meeting the deadline.

The roadblocks which may upset Naidu’s applecart include the mismatch between assistance from the Centre and the soaring project cost; huge volume of the task pending accomplishment which includes spillway, earth dam, diaphragm wall and power house construction which all appear to be near-impossible to be realised in the next two years.

Although the AP government’s Board of Chief Engineers revised the project cost up to Rs 40,000 crore in the current year as a sequel to cost escalation, the Centre has offered the assistance of only Rs 18,000cr through the Nabard.

With this, uncertainty looms large over the project with respect to funding.