Construction of 12 major irrigation projects had been taken up with an estimated cost of Rs 20,206 crore
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Hyderabad: The Telangana government has in principle decided to make extra payments to the tune of Rs 2,712 crore to irrigation contractors in view of increasing cost of materials and due to the non revision of the Standard Schedule of Rates (SSRs) for quite some time.
The Cabinet, which met on Wednesday, approved the recommendation of the Cabinet sub-panel headed by Dy Chief Minister Kadiam Srihari which felt that instead of terminating the present contractors who were unwilling to complete the works and going in for fresh bidding for the unfinished works, it would be cheaper for the government to pay for the cost escalation.
The sub committee also pointed out in its report that neighbouring AP, which had faced a similar problem, had decided to pay for cost escalation. Accordingly, the Cabinet approved the recommendation but decided to make the payments to existing contractors in three installments.
Construction of 12 major irrigation projects had been taken up with an estimated cost of Rs 20,206 crore and works worth Rs 8,108 crore are still pending. The government will now have to pay an extra Rs 2,479 crore, taking the pending cost to Rs 10,587 crore. The remaining Rs 233 crore has been earmarked for completion of 13 medium irrigation projects.
The decision will thus cost the exchequer more for the works that were taken up during the Congress and Telugu Desam regimes while contractors undertaking the 13 major and 12 medium irrigation projects will benefit from the decision. Some of them had stopped works citing escalation of costs, delay in land acquisition and non-revision of SSRs since 2007-08.
( Source : deccan chronicle )
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