VIJAYAWADA: The revised cost estimates (RCE) of the Polavaram project will be presented to the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) of the Central Water Commission (CWC) next week for the final scrutiny. The Water Resources officials from the State, who have been camping in New Delhi for over a week now, have almost finalised the proforma in which the RCE, also called the detailed project report-2 (DPR-2), is required to be presented to the CWC.
According to information, five teams of officials are in the national capital providing necessary clarifications to the queries raised by the CWC. “The scrutiny of the DPR-2 is underway. Since there is a difference in the proforma required by the CWC and the one we submitted, necessary changes have been made, and it will be ready by Friday. Then, it will be presented to the TAC for scrutiny. This process is expected to be completed by next week,” Polavaram Irrigation Project Chief Engineer V Sridhar told TNIE.
Water Resources Minister Devineni Umamaheswara Rao, who visited New Delhi on Monday, has also requested the CWC to expedite the process of sending the DPR-2 for TAC’s approval. Once the TAC gives the green signal, Chief Engineer Sridhar observed, 70 per cent of the work is done.
“After the TAC, the DPR-2 will be sent to the Ministry of Water Resources, which will forward it to the Ministry of Finance.
After getting a clearance from the finance department, it will go for the Cabinet approval, which is a formality,” Sridhar explained, adding that the ministry has been taking up the matter on priority basis.
With this, one of the major hurdles for the speedy completion of the national project will be cleared as the Centre has promised to immediately release funds.
It maybe recalled that Union Water Resources Minister Nitin Gadkari, during his visit to the Polavaram project site on July 11, promised to clear the necessary formalities within three days once the State government clears all the queries raised by the CWC.
Meanwhile, the jet grouting works at the project site came to a halt with heavy inflows due to the Godavari flooding. The officials said that 10 days’ work has been affected as close to 10 lakh cusecs of water inundated the work site. However, the officials said the works would resume shortly, and that they would be concluded by August.
The concrete works were also partially affected due to the ongoing lorry strike. “But, we have deployed police so that the lorries transporting necessary cement to the project site are not obstructed. There is no problem now,” another official said.