VIJAYAWADA: Blaming the previous TDP government for the damage caused to the diaphragm wall of the Polavaram Irrigation Project, Water Resources Minister Ambati Rambabu Monday said though it is mandated that the diaphragm wall has to be built after constructing the cofferdams, it was not done and now it has become a bane to the project.
Countering the allegations of the Opposition on the delay in the construction, Rambabu, through a presentation of the ongoing works, alleged that the diaphragm wall was constructed ahead of cofferdam only to serve the interests of the then ruling party leaders.
The construction of the diaphragm wall was taken up even as the people of 45 submergence villages of the project requested the Polavaram Project Authority (PPA) not to go ahead with the construction.
The then government had rehabilitated only 15 of the 60 submergence villages that come under the backwaters of the project, he said and added the diaphragm wall would have constructed as part of the earth-cum-rock fill dam only after the completion of the upper and lower cofferdams. Ridiculing the criticism against changing the contracting company of the project, Rambabu said it was the previous government which changed the actual contractor and handed over the construction of the national project to Navayuga on a nomination basis. “After the YSRC came to power, we saved the cost of the construction by 12.6 per cent through reverse tendering,’’ he said.
A recent study by a team of IIT-Hyderabad experts on the project also blamed the previous government, he claimed. Rambabu asserted that it was the YSRC government which completed the spillway and spill channel.
“While the previous government had spent just `200 crore on rehabilitation and resettlement, our government spent Rs1,500 crore for the same so far,’’ he said. Rambabu alleged that the TDP government had focussed on the project works rather than resettlement only for their selfish interests.
On the tour of Opposition Leader N Chandrababu Naidu to flood-affected areas, Rambabu said the TDP chief was trying to politicise floods. “Will any politician visit flood-affected areas with party flags and leaders? This is nothing but an attempt to sling mud on the Chief Minister,’’ Rambabu alleged.