When he had taken oath in June 2014, Chandrababu Naidu, the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh had said that Polavaram project will be complete by Kharif season of 2018 and water will be provided for irrigation. It has been four Kharif season since then and the giant project is still lying in the foundation stage. On the other hand, the project's budget alone has shot from 16000 crores to a massive 58000 crores in these 4 years.
The Polavaram project was a central government planned project, but Chandrababu Naidu had got the project after state bifurcation, and since then he had been increasing the project costs, and this was done purely to favor people known to him who were contractors, subcontractors, and the CM's selfish desire to get benefits from these people has only resulted in the project staying stagnant, and experts have said that even in Kharif 2019, there won't be any use for farming out of this project.
The visionary YS Rajasekhara Reddy had planned Polavaram project way back in 2005, at a cost of 10000 crores and 5000 crores were spent with works on right canal wrapped and works on left canal moving on the right track. With Polavaram project, more than 9 lakhs acres can get irrigated which is huge, and this will also be a huge benefit for Godavari area crops, and it can also pertain to the drinking water needs of people as well as needs of factories in Vishakapatnam.
After YSR's death, Centre had formed Polavaram Project Authority to take over the works, but CBN had pressured center and got it for himself.CBN and ministers had been the biggest benefactors, as he replaced original contractors with his favoring people like BASPCL and RSV and slowly, the project cost rose from around 1500 crores to 3000 crores and splitting into 8 packages. With water department and finance departments refusing approvals, yet again CBN had pushed the works worth huge crores to his trusted contractors.
Even the Pattiseema irrigation water transporting to Krishna delta was awarded to favoring contractors. TDP leaders and various levels of bureaucrats earned well by the acquisition of land from people, and Adivasis were cheated with false promises and lost their lands as well. Their resettlement was not done properly, and they also cheated on water supply via Purushotamapatnam irrigation plan to Yeleru and tribal people were the victims of this scam.
While CBN had opposed to handing over the contract to Transstroy, he did the same when Sambasiva Rao, the owner of Transstroy joined TDP. However, Transstroy was a failure and later the project went to Navayuga constructions and cost also went up to more than 10000 crores. At present, only close to 50 % work has been completed in the Polavaram project, and with the project cost increased to around 57000 crores in these 4 years, Chandrababu Naidu's inefficiency and selfish money earning plans are clearly exposed.
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