VIJAYAWADA: Taking exception to Assembly Speaker Kodela Siva Prasad Rao announcing that only 2 per cent of works of Polavaram project were taken up between 1941 and 2014 and the works have gained pace and 56 per cent of works have been completed in the past four years, Congress Rajya Sabha member KVP Ramachandra Rao said the TDP government seems to have misled the Speaker too by giving him false information.
On Tuesday, Siva Prasad Rao, along with thousands of farmers, visited the Polavaram project site and praised the pace at which the works are going on in the past four years.“I assume that you have made the remarks based on the information given by the government and without assessing the falsehood involved in it,’’ Ramachandra Rao said.
The MP, in an open letter to the Speaker on Wednesday, also detailed about the Congress contribution to the irrigation project. “After Bachawat Tribunal nod in 1979-80, the then Congress Chief Minister T Anjaiah laid the foundation for the project in 1981. Later, for major part of 1985-2004, the State was under TDP rule and the government failed to recognise the importance of the project. More particularly between 1996 and 2004, though some MLAs tried for completion of the project by taking up the issue at the Central level, the then CM ensured that works did not pick up pace,’’ he said.
Ramachandra Rao further added that it is a difficult task to get approvals for a project which submerges lands in neighbouring States. “During 2004-2009, the YS Rajasekhara Reddy government managed to get forest, environment and several other important clearances,’’ he said and added that the YSR regime had also taken up the left and right canal works then itself and completed them to a large extent.
“It was because of the completion of these canals that the present TDP government could inter-link river Godavari and Krishna rivers,’’ the MP said.