The Committee on Public Accounts (PAC) on Wednesday lambasted officials of the irrigation department for not giving proper details and records on the irrigation projects being taken up in the state as part of Jalayagnam.
Enraged by the absence of the principal secretary (irrigation) from the meeting conducted in the Assembly Committee Hall here on Wednesday, the PAC decided to write letters to chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy and speaker Nadendla Manohar, asking them to initiate action against him and some other officials of the department for not attending the PAC review meetings.
The PAC, which met under the chairmanship of Revuri Prakash Reddy of the TDP, reviewed the Telugu Ganga, Kalwakurthi, Bhima, Nettempadu and Gundlakamma project works with officials of the irrigation and revenue departments. It is learnt that the members detected large-scale corruption in the works and also found the progress of the works very slow.
A member, Etela Rejender of the TRS, said not a single irrigation project had been completed so far. “Though the deadline has expired, construction works at various project sites are still at a snail’s pace. But estimates and cost of the projects are escalating day after day. The government should initiate action against those contractors who failed to complete the projects in the stipulated time and recover money from them,” Rajender demanded.
TDP members of the committee _ B Durga Prasad, Devineni Uma and G Jaipal Yadav _ wondered why the Telugu Ganga project, whose construction had begun during the rule of NT Rama Rao, was not completed after several years. The project cost had increased from Rs 600 crore to 5,000 crore, they said.