Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy on Tuesday said that the Polavaram national irrigation project will be completed in the coming 18 months without any reduction in the height of the dam. Affirming that the Rehabilitation and Relocation (R&R) works are going at full pace, Jagan said that it will be completed on time with the help from the Centre.
In a short discussion on the Polavaram project in the AP state Assembly on Tuesday, the chief minister said, “At present, there is a delay in getting clearance of designs from Central Water Commission (CWC). However, after getting the approval, the project will be completed in 18 months.”
It will be dedicated to former AP (joint state of Andhra and Telangana) chief minister and his father, the late Dr YS Rajasekhara Reddy, who started the project. A statue will be installed in his memory.
Blaming the previous Telugu Desam Party (TDP) government, Jagan Mohan Reddy said that “poor handling and mismanagement” of the project left huge gaps in both upper and lower cofferdams resulting in the damage of the diaphragm wall.
He added that the previous chief minister and TDP supremo N. Chandrababu Naidu created a “man-made” disaster. “When the issue of cost was raised while we were in Opposition, we were gagged. Now we are making efforts to clear the mess. We have successfully completed spillway works, upper cofferdam, spill channel and installed 48 gates in a very short time,” he Jagan stated, according to a press release from his office.
Calling out the opposition for “falsely propagating” that the height of the Polavaram project will be decreased, the AP chief minister said, “It is not the height of the dam but TDP’s presence that has been reducing election after election, and will be dwarfed in 2024, with Chandrababu Naidu even losing Kuppam.”
Speaking about the R&R works, the Jagan Mohan Reddy stated that works are in full progress to completion. “The TDP government had completely abandoned the R&R works and started constructing cofferdam. We have relocated 27 out of 373 identified places, where 7962 of 20,496 displaced families have been shifted to R&R colonies. Since 3,228 families have opted for OTS, houses for the remaining 17268 families are being constructed,” he said.
Earlier, Irrigation Minister Anil Kumar Yadav initiated the short discussion on Polavaram Project and MLAs Balaraju and Jaggi Reddy spoke on the subject.
