Naidu gets friendship, KCR the benefits

In Telangana, BJP is in the opposition. Yet the BJP-led Centre does not delay or hold up clearances for any of Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao's flagship projects.

On the other hand in the sibling state of Andhra Pradesh, BJP is not only an ally of TDP but also a partner in the government. Yet there has always been a love-hate relationship between Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and the BJP dispensation at the Centre.

Take for instance Kaleshwaram. It is as important a project for Telangana as Polavaram is for AP. KCR's stock soared high recently with the Centre clearing all approvals for the project, including the most crucial one-environment clearance.

Walking on cloud nine, Chandrasekhar Rao said: "With environmental clearance, Kaleshwaram has crossed a crucial milestone. We should be able to provide partial irrigation facility to the parched lands of Telangana from the next monsoon."

The project envisages diversion of 180 tmcft of Godavari water to provide irrigation facility to 7.38 lakh hectares of existing ayacut and stabilise 7.62 lakh hectares. Besides this, there are plans to draw 20 tmcft from Yellampally and 25 tmcft from self-yield tanks.

Kaleshwaram will ring in hope in at least seven erstwhile districts of Telangana-Adilabad, Nizamabad, Karimnagar, Nalgonda, Warangal, Medak and Rangareddy- as the project proposes to meet 70 percent of irrigation requirements of farmers in the region.

Funds too are not a problem for Telangana. The government has allocated Rs.25,000 crore in the State Budget. Now that all clearances have been obtained, raising another Rs.20,000 crore from financial institutions may not pose any problem. Bolstered by this arithmetic, KCR has exhorted officials not to worry about funds but instead focus on executing the project within the deadline. He even suggested initiating works that are appropriate to the season on hand.

"You should be clear as to what works should be taken up in winter and what should be taken up in monsoon," he reasoned.

For him, land acquisition is also not a problem since the State is going to acquire land necessary for project works under the State Amended Land Acquisition Act.

What amazes one is the kind of work that the Telangana government has done in obtaining clearances from the Centre despite the fact that TRS and BJP are poles apart in political parlance.

Not very long ago, Chandrasekhar Rao, in a sharp reaction to BJP chief Amit Shah's comments on allocation of funds generously to the state, said that Telangana people did not know any Baadshah. In Telangana we are the Baadshah, he said tongue-in-cheek as Shah is known as BJP Baadshah.

Despite this, the Centre accorded all clearances, which show that the state government had done its homework well and at political level too, the TRS's stand vis-a-vis BJP was right - confrontation yields better results than conciliation.

In stark contrast, in Andhra Pradesh, the Rs.58,319 crore (revised estimate) Polavaram Project appears to be on the verge of coming to a grinding halt. When the Centre dashed off a letter to AP, suggesting changes in the tender notification for sub-contracting part of the work originally entrusted to Transstroy after it had expressed its inability to carry on the construction of the project works since it was in losses, Chandrababu Naidu flew off the handle in the Assembly.

He said since the BJP was his ally, he was exercising extreme restraint and that the Centre was welcome to take the responsibility of the construction of the project if it was not satisfied with the way he was handling it. He said he had even compromised on the Special Category status and hoped that the BJP would honour all its commitments given in the AP State Reorganisation Act, 2014 as well as those made in the special package offered to the State.

According to sources in the BJP, since the Centre was footing the bill for Polavaram, it wants the people to know about it. Until now, Polavaram has remained Chandrababu Naidu's show.

Since the Centre was the producer and Chandrababu Naidu is only the director, it wants the people to know the facts and thus increase its footprints in the State, which is a virgin land for the saffron party. This was the reason why Nitin Gadkari had tightened his grip on the project. He had even visited the project once in October and is scheduled to visit shortly. The Centre is also insisting on accounts for the expenditure made on the project with the funds it had released, which has become an eyesore for the TDP. The BJP says it does not want the project derailed with the sole intention of letting the people know that if such a setback foes happen, it was not to be blamed. Gadkari said that all measures would be taken to ensure that the project is in place by the end of 2018.

Naidu too wants the project to be completed by then but he says he is game if the Centre takes over the project, because he too is not very sure if the project would be over before the end of 2018.

Indications are that Kaleswaram might be in place by monsoon next year and Polavaram might end up as a dud.