YSR Congress chief whip in Parliament Y.V. Subba Reddy has urged the Centre to order a high-level inquiry into the alleged irregularities in the execution of the Polavaram project.
Accusing Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu with using the project as “milch cow to generate kickbacks,” the MP from Ongole asked: Where is the need for the State government to execute a national project, which is solely the responsibility of the Union Government under the AP State Reorganisation Act?” A delegation of the YSRCP leaders would call on Union Water Resources Development Minister Nitin Gadkari next week and press for their demand, he added.
He accused the State government of trying to go for a new contractor to save the skin of the present one, a TDP MP, and shift the blame for the non-completion of the project in time. “Going by the pace of work, the project will not be completed even in 2019, leave alone 2018, when it is scheduled to be completed,” he said. In the wake of Mr. Gadkari’s remarks that Polavaram should be built as a “corruption-free project,” the Chief Minister had rushed to Nagpur.
People of the State had a right to know what transpired between them at the meeting, Mr. Subba Reddy said, and suspected a secret agenda behind the meeting.
Change of contractor would lead to delays due to legal wrangles, resulting in escalation of the cost of the project, which had already suffered cost and time overruns, he said.
The Rajasekhara Reddy Government had pegged the cost at a mere ₹16,000 crore, he said.
