Despite declaring Polavaram major irrigation project on Godavari river as a national project, the Centre has been periodically putting spokes in the completion of the project at the earliest and setting one condition or the other.
Initially, the Centre claimed that its liability was only Rs 15,667.90 crore as per the estimates made by April 1, 2014. Thereafter, overall expenditure incurred by the State government up to February 2022 on the project was reported at Rs 14,336.31 crore.
Out of this, Rs 12,311.16 crore has been released by the Centre so far. Subsequently, the state government also claimed an additional expenditure of Rs 437 crore and forwarded the same through the Polavaram Project Authority (PPA) for reimbursement.
This was stated by Union minister of state for Jal Sakthi Bishweshwar Tudu in his written replies to the questions raised by the YSRCP MPs in Parliament.
He also admitted that the Advisory Committee on Irrigation, Flood Control and Multipurpose Projects of Jal Sakthi Ministry accepted the Revised Cost Estimate of the Polavaram irrigation project for Rs 55,548.87 crore at 2017-18 price level.
“Subsequently, in March, 2020, the Revised Cost Committee recommended the cost of the project at Rs 29,027.25 crore at 2013-14 price level and at Rs 47,725.74 crore at 2017-18 price level. Thereafter, in December, 2020 Government of Andhra Pradesh submitted the proposal for investment clearance of the revised cost,” he said.
The union minister, however, gave a twist for the approval of the revised cost of Polavaram.
He pointed out that the Polavaram Project Authority has sought compliance of certain conditions such as conducting of socio-economic survey, preparation of detailed project report of distributory network, submission of revised timeline for completion schedule, etc. from the state government.
Now, the state government has to conduct a fresh socio-economic survey and prepared fresh DPR also for the distributory network, if it has to get revised project cost.
This is going to delay the project further, though the Jagan government is hoping to complete the project by June 2023.