Newly farmed Telangana state government strongly opposing construction of the project with present design. The government has demanded that Union Government should convene Chief Minister meeting who are opposing and supporting project. These views expressed by Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao with Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his recent Delhi tour. He was also plan approach courts on this issue.
Meanwhile Telangana state irrigation minister T Harish Rao keenly observing developments on Polavaram issue in Delhi. It was learned that he was established his own net work in view to know the government moves on project issue. He was also taking advises from state government adviser R Vidyasagar Rao to raise objections before the union government.
He suspected the Union government committed to complete the project in coming years with time bound programme. In this back drop by taking legal steps only help the Telagana state government to prevent the center moves on project which was already get national project status. He was plan to conduct a review meeting with department officials and all the political parties after that only he would prepare action plan in view to force the Center changing the present project design.
However Andhra Pardesh state irrigation minister Devineni Umamaheswara Rao expressed confidence that Polavram project will be completed in coming five years.
“Polavaram is heart of Andhra Pradesh and statements opposing the Ordinance regarding Polavaram project, demand to change its design and other objections being raised are political but the fact is that the project would also help other States,” minister said.
He and others would visit Polavaram project site on June 16, after Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu releases a White Paper on irrigation projects on June 14 to examine how much money was spent, the volume of work completed and discuss the relief and rehabilitation of the people to be affected by the project.
This visit would be after examining the Pulichintala project on June 15.
The Minster said the R and R programme would be taken up without causing any problem to Girijans and non-Girijans of the seven mandals of Khammam district coming under the Polavaram project. They would be rehabilitated wherever they wanted. Since this project would be funded by the Centre, the AP Government would also seek the amount spent by it so far from the Centre.
The Polavaram project would irrigate several lakhs of acres, provide 24 TMC of water to Visakhapatnam for its drinking water needs and industrial use, drinking water to hundreds of villages and could also generate 900 MW of power.
