Take up Polavaram immediately: BJP

Centre, State urged not to succumb to pressure from Telangana parties

BJP national executive member Dr K Haribabu addressing a press conference in Visakhapatnam on Monday.

Visakhapatnam: The city unit of Bharatiya Janata Party wanted the State and Central governments to immediately take up the much awaited Polavaram project without succumbing to pressure by Telangana political party leaders’ demand to cancel the tender process.

Party national executive member Dr K Haribabu told reporters here on Monday that the Polavaram project is the only viable and prestigious project among all 86 projects taken up in Jalayagnam as it provides water to both farm and domestic sectors with less investment. Besides, the project has the unique facility of transferring water from Godavari basin to Krishna basin to irrigate about 13 lakh acres in Krishna district.

He condemned the demand of Telangana leaders to change the project design and to cancel the tender process as ‘design change’ is the lookout of technical experts and not of political leaders. Referring to alleged irregularities in the tender process, he said already a case was pending with the High Court and it would finalise the issue.

Dr Haribabu, while stating that the Polavaram project is the lifeline for East, West, Krishna and north coastal Andhra districts, took strong exception to the TRS attempt to stall the project, adding that “stalling the project means stalling State development”.

He bemoaned that some vested political parties themselves were instigating the neighbouring State governments to file writ petitions in their High Courts against the Andhra Pradesh government by furnishing details of proposed irrigation projects.

“The TRS is claiming that the relatives of Telugu Desam Party bagged the Polavaram project tender while the TDP is alleging against TRS. It is immaterial whether TRS’ relatives will build the project or the TD’s relatives or let TRS and TD take up the project as a joint venture.

But the BJP wants the project to be completed immediately,” Dr Haribabu maintained. He also found fault with the statements issued by some Andhra political leaders, including K Yerrannaidu who demanded to cancel the tender process which is very unfortunate. He asked the Telangana leaders to agitate on their own issues but not at the cost of Polavarm project.

BJP city president M Nagendra demanded the local MPs, MLAs and MLCs to take the lead and mount pressure on Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy pleading him to initiate steps to immediately take up the project work and the Uttarandhra Sujala Sravanthi.

Discounting the opinion of TRS to stall the project by cancelling the tender, he demanded the State government to take up the work at the earliest.

Retired chief engineer (irrigation) S Satyanarayana, Narayana Raju and city general secretary Buddha Lakshminarayana were among those present.

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