Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu finally took a clear stand on the construction of Polavaram project. He asked the centre either construct the project planned across Godavari in Andhra Pradesh itself or release the entire money to the state to take up the works on the project without delay.
Chief minister told this in a meeting of state MPs convened at his residence in Vijayawada on Tuesday. Even though the project has been declared a national project in the AP Reorganization Act, 2014, the responsibility of the construction has been entrusted with state government. Centre asked the cash starved state to construct the project and get the bills reimbursed.
Though looks innocuous on the face of it, the decision to leave the responsibility of the construction of the project with state is fraught with many problems. First the state has to spend the money and get it reimbursed after answering the queries raised by the centre. Given the financial crunch, it is highly impossible for the state to go ahead on the project.
Naidu told the MPs that the state government had spent about Rs 2218 crore on the project and asked them to get it reimbursed. According to sources, centre has been apprehensive about the possible diversion of funds to the Amaravati project if released in advance. So, it set up Polavaram authority and asked the state to construct the project as per its priority and the centre would bear the cost.
Today’s meeting was meant to tutor the MPs to get all pending projects cleared during their stay in the New Delhi for winter session, which is scheduled to commence from November 26,2015. Naidu categorically said “centre should either construct the project or release the money in advance if it wants the state to construct the project.” He also said the state had no objection whatsoever to transfer the project to the centre if the union government was prepared to complete it on time.
Naidu also expressed displeasure that the centre had not released any advance flood relief for Andhra Pradesh. ” State suffered huge loss in the recent cyclone and floods. Tentatively the loss is estimated at Rs 3000 crore. We have asked the PM for the release of Rs 1000 immediately as advance. They did not release anything to the state, but released Rs 939 crore to Tamil Nadu,” he said.
Naidu asked the MPs to find out the progress of the projects that had been languishing at the centre. He informed them about 68 projects had been pending with the state with Railways leading the list.
The CM asked the MPs to press for Special Category status as well as Special Package to Andhra Pradesh, besides Railway zone during the winter session of Parliament.
