VIJAYAWADA: To facilitate simultaneous progress in all major components of the Polavaram Irrigation Project, it has been considered prudent to recognise the component-wise ceilings prescribed by the Revised Cost Committee for PIP, as a special case beyond the norms of funding for the national project. However, the Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance, in its office memorandum dated June 5, 2023, communicated no objection to remove component-wise ceiling.
This was disclosed by Union Minister of State for Jal Shakti Bishweswar Tudu, in a written reply to Pocha Brahmananda Reddy, YSRC MP from Nandyal, in the Lok Sabha on Thursday. The MP sought to know whether any component-wise restrictions are being imposed on the Polavaram Irrigation Project; and if it is true that as a general principle, the expenditure for national projects is considered as a whole without any component-wise restrictions and if that is true then what are the reasons for imposing component-wise restrictions on the Polavaram Irrigation Project, which is also a national project.
As regard to the MP’s question, it also seeks to know whether it is also true that Rs 905.51 crore of expenditure on Polavaram project has been rejected for reimbursement as it has gone beyond component-wise restrictions; and if so, the steps taken by the government to clear the expenditure given that cost escalation is a natural consequence of delay in the project execution.
In view of the expected cost escalation, the component-wise ceiling has been relaxed by the Jal Shakti Ministry to the extent required and recommended by the Polavaram Project Authority and Central Water Commission. As a result, an additional amount of Rs 550.97 crore, for which the bills were found to be otherwise eligible for reimbursement, but kept in abeyance due to component-wise restriction, have been now reimbursed by the Centre, the Union Minister informed.