Polavaram, the World’s largest irrigation project created double World Record. The attempt was monitored by an official adjudicator from GUINNESS WORLD RECORD® in the presence of Hon’ble Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, of that time, Sri N. Chandrababu Naidu.
But the project came to a halt with chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy terminating the contract given to Navayuga Engineering Company Limited by the previous Telugu Desam Party government. The state irrigation department served a termination notice on the construction major for pre-closure of work. In a notice dated 29th of July, B Sudhakar Babu, the Chief Engineer of the Polavaram Project Head works unit said that they have been requested to give consent/representation on mutual consent basis and also to settle the final accounts within 15 days.
The work resumes;
Anil Kumar denounced the opposition’s allegations over the delay in the project and blamed the former Chandrababu Naidu-led TDP government for failing to rehabilitate the families affected by the project. “In the first three years of the previous term, hardly any work was done. They could have at least rehabilitated these 3,000 families, it would have just cost them Rs 2,900 crore. If they hadn’t ignored it, these families wouldn’t have been affected so badly by floods now,” Anil Kumar said.
The minister also said that terminating the contract with Navayuga Engineering Company Limited has not caused any delay in the project. “There has been no scope to continue work in the past few days due to floods. This will continue until October. We will certainly begin work from November 1 definitely after reverse tendering,” he said.
He also claimed that the previous government has ignored cost escalation clauses in the past and had kept increasing the costs according to the SSR (Standard Schedule of Rates). Polavaram, which is estimated to cost Rs 58,000 crore, was declared a national project in 2016. It is designed to bring an area of over seven lakh acres in coastal Andhra under irrigation besides producing 960 MW power, utilising 273,000 million cubic feet or TMC of water currently going into the sea.
Source: The News Minute
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