The Telugu Desam Party will bring up the inordinate delay in the completion of the K.L. Rao Sagar Multi-Purpose Pulichintala Project in the ensuing Assembly session, Mylavaram MLA and party Krishna district president Devineni Umamaheswara Rao has said.
The TDP district president along with three other MLAs, Dasari Balavardhana Rao, Tangirala Prabhakara Rao, Sriram Rajagopal, the party’s prospective candidate for the Vijayawada Parliamentary Constituency Kesineni Srinivas (Nani) and former Chief Whip Kagita Venkata Rao went in a delegation to the dam site with the media in tow on Sunday.
While the Irrigation Department engineers at the site initially said that the project would be completed within a month, they changed their statement when Mr. Umamaheswara Rao repeatedly expressed doubts. The MLA asked them how they can be so sure, because, as of now the deadline of the project had been extended seven times.
The officials said that it might take more than a month, but refused to commit on how long it would actually take to complete the project works.
Flabbergasted
The MLAs were flabbergasted to learn that a dedicated HT line had not been provided to the project. The site engineers said all the radial gates had not been installed, because power was not provided for their operation.
They said that there would a problem once the rains start if they were not able to operate the radial gates. The contractor said that a letter had already been written to the AP Transco to provide a dedicated power line. The radial gates were heavy and even the most powerful generator was not sufficient to operate them, they said.
The MLA said that provision of electricity was a difficult matter and it could take months for that to happen. There was total failure on the part of the government in this regard.
The MLA said that the contractor told him that he had already written to the Transco, but the officials said that the government had not issued any instructions in this regard.
The Chief Engineer had retired and the Superintending Engineer, who was in-charge of the project, was due to retire within a month. So nobody was taking any interest, he said.
The progress on the double lane road bridge (DLRB) was progressing faster, with just one span to be completed. Mr. Umamaheswara Rao said that if the government does not act before the end of the Assembly session, the TDP would mobilise farmers to agitate and highlight the issue.
