A.P. Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on Wednesday reiterated his wish to release water from the Polavaram project through gravity by June 2019 and hoped that the Central government would extend the desired cooperation.
“It is nearly an 80-year dream, which the TDP government has realised in less than four years with a missionary zeal,” he said, taking pride in the fact that it was a major step towards the interlinking of rivers.
Repeat of Nehru’s walk
Addressing a meeting after inaugurating the nearly 1.70 km spillway gallery at the dam site, Mr. Naidu said the project was conceived way back in 1941 but did not take off as successive governments had not given the priority it deserved.
Mr. Naidu walked through the spillway gallery along with his family members, including his grandson accompanied by Ministers, MLAs and MLCs.
The walk was repeat of what first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru did when he visited the Nagarjunasagar project.
The Chief Minister said the spillway was the highest such structure in the world designed to discharge 50 lakh cusecs and the project was poised to create many records. It was because of his perseverance and hard work of a battery of engineers and workers that 58.15% progress had been achieved.
He said 90% of the right main canal was completed and 63.58% of the left canal and other work were going at a brisk pace with the involvement of a host of foreign companies, including the Chinese company Sany, which provided the world’s longest concrete boom placer which could pump 180 cubic meters per hour.
Has the project been delayed even by a day due to attempts to scuttle it, the cost would have steeply escalated and the foreigners would not have come back.”
Mr. Naidu said his goal was to link Godavari, Krishna, Nagavali, Vamsadhara and Penna which makes a ‘Mahasangamam’.
The State government had so far spent ₹14,600 crore on Polavaram (nearly ₹9,465 crore after it was declared as a national project) and the Centre gave approximately ₹6,730 crore.
The revised cost of land acquisition and relief and rehabilitation stood at ₹33,050 crore and ₹5,875 crore was already spent.
Mr. Siva Prasada Rao said he would not talk politics but advise critics to see the project for themselves and speak, as obstructing it would harm the interests of many generations.
