Funds Shortage Hampers Polavaram Project, Bifurcation Woes Continue

Vijayawada: The state’s bifurcation stalled execution of the multipurpose Polavaram irrigation project mainly due to inadequate funds.

Though the Centre had declared it as a national project and set up a new agency, Polavaram Project Authority, to monitor the progress of works, paucity of funds remains a thorny issue.

On the other hand, both AP and TS are laying claims and counterclaims on power dues. AP maintains that TS’s power dues have gone up to ₹7,102 crore, including principal amount of ₹3,441 crore and interest from June 2, 2014 to June 10, 2017 with ₹43 crore getting added every month as interest on the principal amount. As TS filed a case against AP on power dues issue, the TS High Court scheduled the next hearing in the case on June 9.

Division of assets and liabilities mentioned under Schedule IX and X of AP Reorganisation Act, 2014 involving 245 institutions with a total value of fixed assets worth ₹1.42 lakh crore remained unresolved causing hardships to AP.

Meanwhile, the Andhra Pradesh government’s recent move to file an affidavit in the Supreme Court seeking an early end to issues pertaining to the bifurcation, helped it get financial aid worth ₹10,460 crore.

Though AP’s counsel Abhishek Singhvi had said in the apex court earlier that it was like opening a Pandora’s Box if the case pertaining to division of assets between AP and Telangana was reopened apart from implementation of several assurances, Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy filed an affidavit seeking expeditious solutions.

Although several petitions were filed in the apex court to declare the division as being unconstitutional immediately after the UPA government announced bifurcation, there was no headway on this front.

Former MP Vundavalli Aruna Kumar, who was one of the petitioners, changed the prayer of his petition in 2022 to issue a direction to the Centre to formulate guidelines for division of any state and directions for implementation of assurances given to the residuary AP.

Aruna Kumar said, “Though our petitions seeking the apex court to declare division of erstwhile AP as unconstitutional have been pending for hearing for so long, AP’s gesture to file an affidavit have pinched the Centre as the apex court may ask it to reply to AP’s affidavit on the issue. A part of the credit goes to Jagan Mohan Reddy and also to himself for mounting pressure on the Centre to release the long-pending revenue deficit to AP in one go.”