Accusing the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister of misleading the State Aassembly about the Polavaram project, senior Congress Member of Parliament K V P Ramachandra Rao asked for a white paper on the issue.
Addressing a press conference here, Mr Rao said he had written an open letter to Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu where had asked several important questions regarding the "changed funding pattern since NDA government came to power in May 2014."
" You have proudly announced that the Centre had decided to grant ₹23,814
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crore through NABARD for the expenditure between 2015-16 and 219-2020. Don't you know that these funds were not even half of the total project cost of ₹54,000 crore as estimated by your own government?"asked Mr. Rao in his letter to the Chief Minister.
The Congress MP asked the Andhra Pradesh government to explain how it would arrange the remaining ₹30,000 crore and by when the project would be completed.
In the letter, Mr Rao also accused that the Chandra Babu Naidu government tried to ignore the contribution made by the Congress-led UPA government that made the project a national project.
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"Is it note true that the NDA government had put a condition that it would bear the project cost only as on April 1, 2014, while the previous UPA Cabinet decided on May 1, 2014 that the Centre itself would take up the construction of Polavaram project at its own cost and bear the entire cost escalations and also rehabilitation and resettlement expenditure?"
Polavaram project is a multipurpose dam-cum- irrigation project in West Godavari and East Godavari districts of Andhra Pradesh. But its reservoirs spread to Chhattisgarh and Odisha.
On Wednesday, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik wrote to Prime Minister Modi not to allow the construction of the dam until all pending issues (including impact on neighbouring States) were resolved.