TD could have finished Polavaram by 2020: Nimmala

VISAKHAPATNAM: Palakollu MLA Nimmala Rama Naidu said if the Telugu Desam was in power in the state, it would have completed the Polavaram project by December 2020 but under the present dispensation it was uncertain if the project would be completed even by 2030.

Addressing a press conference in Visakhapatnam on Saturday, the TD legislator said the project was jinxed under Chief Minister Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy’s government.

He said one major reason for the delay was that the government had gone for a reverse tendering process. Due to a lack of flood management, the project’s diaphragm wall was damaged and this was corroborated by experts from IIT Hyderabad, the MLA said.

The upper coffer dam would have been completed in two months but the government could not complete it in 14 months, he said, further questioning why one particular work was given to two agencies.

Why could Jagan not save the project the rains this season, when former Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu was successful in diverting flood water?“Jagan has to explain to people the benefits of reverse tendering. He is cheating the public,’’ the MLA said and asked for whose benefit the height of the dam was reduced by four metres.

He said while Naidu won awards, Jagan sullied the state’s name. The Chief Minister turned the national project into a simple barrage, Rama Naidu said.
He said under TD rule the government took people to show the Polavaram project's progress but now the government is arresting the people's representatives if they plan to visit the project.

“The state is losing a lot under the YSRC government,’’ he said.