The claims of the Bharatiya Janata Party that the Centre was paying promptly the bills of Polavaram Project are totally false. Of the ₹8,689 crore the State Government spent on the project since 2014, the Centre paid only ₹6,727 crore and is still due ₹1,935 crore to A.P., Minister for Water Resources Devineni Umamaheswara Rao has said.
Responding to statements made by BJP leaders Kanna Lakshminarayana, Daggubati Purandeswari and Kavuri Sambasiva Rao after visiting the Polavaram Dam site on Sunday, the Minister said here on Monday that the leaders had been saying for the past 10 years that the Congress was building the Polavaram project, but suddenly changed their stand and were now saying that the entire credit for building of the project should be given to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Coming down heavily on BJP State president Lakshminarayana, the Minister charged him with changing political parties frequently. Mr. Lakshminarayana had no moral right to make allegations against the TDP, the Minister said.
Mr. Umamaheswara Rao recalled how BJP MP K Hari Babu, who visited the Polavaram Dam site, appreciated the progress. Though Godavari water was taken to Karamchedu in Guntur district, neither Mr. Lakshminarayana nor Ms. Purandreswari had any appreciation for the efforts of the Telugu Desam Party or Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu who was working tirelessly for the completion of the national project. The Minister said the BJP leaders were cribbing that the state government did not have the least concern even though the Centre was funding the project. “It is the money of the people. The Centre is bound to build the project by a parliamentary Act and it is bound to ‘pay every paisa spent on the project to the State,” he asserted.
Trashing allegations on corruptions, the Minister said that Water Resources Department officials were working overtime to answer all the doubts raised by the Polavaram Project Authority (PPA) and the Central Water Commission (CWC) and provide replies in the High Court, National Green Tribunal and the Supreme Court related to cases filed by political rivals who were trying to sabotage the Polavaram project.
When the PPA asked that a Chief Engineer be appointed at Polavaram Project site, the A.P. Government made it happen also most immediately. Top priority was being given to the project, the Minister said. Fifteen designs were pending with the CWC and the BJP leaders were trying to defend the Centre making baseless allegations, Mr. Umamaheswara Rao said.
