Polavaram at centre stage

New Delhi: A delegation of APCC leaders led by its president N Raghuveera Reddy here on Tuesday met Union Minister Nitin Gadkari and urged him to take over the execution of the Polavaram project and complete it on its own as the state government was in no position to do so due to the mess it had created.

Unless the Centre intervened now and took up the project on its own, there was little that would be achieved, Raghuveera Reddy said referring to the mess the project had landed in because of state government's enthusiasm to take the responsibility. Pointing out to the Union Minister, the assurances given by the Centre to AP in the Reorganization Act of 2014, he said it was the duty of the Centre to complete the project as promised. The then Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, had categorically stated on the floor of the House in 2014 that all assurances incorporated would be delivered by the Centre, including the Polavaram Project which was a national project.

The Centre should not have given the project works to the state government in the first place and even if it was forced to do so, there should have been a strict monitoring of the same to check corruption and delays in the same, the APCC chief said. Now the Centre could not shirk away from its responsibility and leave the fate of the project to the incompetent state government that was making itself a laughing stock in the eyes of everybody, he added.

He also raised the issue of clearances to the project to know whether the Environmental Impact Assessment done earlier was still valid or not asking the Centre to explain its reluctance to take up the project on technical grounds. Whether it liked it or not, the Centre had a bounden duty to execute the project and there should be no going back on it and the project must be completed by 2018 as it was the lifeline for the new state.

Nitin Gadkari explained them Centre's position on the project and said the project could be completed any time by the Centre but the revised cost burden would not be taken up by it. The Relief and Rehabilitation was the major hurdle as the State was demanding Rs 33,000 crore towards the same as against the entire project cost of Rs 16,000 crore as per the estimates mentioned in the original proposals. Congress MP KVP Ramachandra Rao, former MPs Pallam Raju, J D Seelam, former Speaker Nadendla Manohar, Pasupuleti Bala Raju, former MLC Gidugu Rudraraju, former Minister S Sailajanath and others accompanied the APCC president.

Later speaking to the media, Raghuveera Reddy said the Congress party was only interested in the completion of the project as it was a promise made by the UPA government. It was strange that the NDA government was dilly dallying today in the execution of the project having washed away its hands after handing it over to the state government. The TD government was letting down the people of the state with its failures galore. The first major compromise it had made was with the Special Category Status that was the right of the people of the state. Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu had claimed that he had bargained with the Centre to hand over the project to him so that he would ensure its early completion.

Today both the state and Central governments were playing a cat and mouse game and depriving the people of their rightful project. Apprehensions were there that the cost escalation would become a people's burden in future and the Centre should ensure that it did not happen, Raghuveera Reddy said. He said his party would pressurize the Centre on this count in the upcoming winter session of the Parliament and also expose the Centre-state nexus in delaying the project.