The State government, which is pushing the envelope to complete the Polavaram project as per schedule, was caught off guard when the Centre indicated that it needed to put everything on hold.
Though the State government is giving top priority to the project, the Centre is showing in more than one way that it does not share the enthusiasm of the State. After telling the State government that it had to make adjustments at several meetings, it is now writing letters asking it to literally stop work.
On November 1, Senior Joint Commissioner Anup Kumar Srivastava wrote to the Andhra Pradesh Water Resources Department to put on hold work on the coffer dam needed to build a 2.5-km Earth Cum Rock Filled (ECRF) dam.
Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu has said time and again that water will be released into the right and left main canals of the project by gravity in June 2018. Most of the spillway and the coffer dam built upstream the ECRF should be completed to be able to fulfil the promise. The 174-km right main canal (PRMC) is complete, and this year over 100 tmcft water lifted by the Pattiseema Lift Irrigation Scheme was used to irrigate Krishna delta. Work however needs to be done on the left main canal.
The efforts of the State government notwithstanding, the Central Water Resources Department (WRD) wrote to the National Hydro Power Corporation (NHPC) to look into the design of the coffer dam and asked the corporation to see if there was a need for a coffer dam at all. It also ordered the A.P. government to ‘put on hold’ work on seepage cutoff wall and any other structure of the coffer dam “till advice of NHPC is received.” Since then an expert committee of the NHPC has visited the site once, but it is yet to give its advice.
Second letter
In a second letter on November 27, the Central WRD Secretary asked A.P. government to put on hold tender notices for spillway and spill channel concrete works issued on November 16.
Unless the ECRF dam and the spillway are built simultaneously, water cannot be sent into the canals by gravity, a top irrigation official said. As per schedule, work on the coffer dam should begin not later than December 1, but in the changed situation it may take a while before the NHPC experts come out with a verdict.
The State government tried to go ahead with the coffer dam as recommended by the Dam Design Review Panel (DDRP). To the suggestion of the Central WRD that it was not wise to change the existing contractor, it called for tenders for only part of the works but even this was rejected by the Centre and it wrote a second letter suggesting that no tenders should be called without a discussion at the Polavaram Project Authority (PPA) meeting even as the Chief Minister informed the Assembly that unless the existing contractor was changed the project could not be completed on time.
The reasons cited for keeping on hold part of the tenders are unfounded, irrigation officials said. “The Centre seems to be afraid of the existing contractor,” said a senior engineer.
