Rise in project cost due to upsurge in land prices: Uma Maheswara Rao

Amaravati: Minister for Water Resources Devineni Uma Maheswara Rao said that the revised Polavaram project expenditure rose to Rs 57,940 crore.

Answering to the members for a short question on escalation of cost of Polavaram project, in the Assembly here on Monday, the minister said the state government paid Rs 65,000 compensation per acre in the past but now it has reached up to Rs 11 lakh per acre.

Ensuring the completion of Polavaram project as per schedule, he said that water would be given to farmers by the end of 2018 with gravity and total project would be completed by 2019. The Central Water Commission and experts of the Polavaram Project Authority inspected several times and the state government updated all the information as per the procedure, he said.

The Minister also said that the state government started construction of colonies to the victims in West Godavari and East Godavari districts. He took strong objection to the comments of the Opposition party members who described the gallery walk of Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and the MLAs as picnic tour.

He said that the Opposition party leaders were creating hurdles for Polavaram project in many ways. The State would complete the project at any cost, he said.

BJP floor leader P Vishnukumar Raju condemned the criticism of YSR Congress leaders that the gallery walk of the MLAs and the Chief Minster was a picnic tour. He termed that it was history and Chandrababu Naidu’s grandson Nara Devansh also walked along with his father Lokesh.

On this occasion, he requested the government to pay bills to sub-contractors of which an amount of Rs 22 crore is pending with the state government. He said that the small contractors were facing financial difficulties for the last several months.