Hyderabad: The state government has been rushing the tender process for the Rs 6,000-crore drinking water project for Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy’s native district Chittoor.
Despite an uproar in the neighbouring Nellore district against sourcing water from the Kandaleru reservoir dead storage, the state-run Infrastructure Corporation of Andhra Pradesh (Incap) has set the stage for awarding contracts in a few days.
The last date for submitting tenders is Wednesday and the same will be opened on November 25. Moreover, with the government picking the jinxed Incap as the nodal executing agency while ignoring other state agencies with expertise like the Rural Water Supply and Andhra Pradesh Medical Health Infrastructure Corporation, has raised eyebrows.
Sources said that the government is also preparing to give away huge mobilisation advances to the executing agencies, following the Jalayagnam model, within days of finalising the contract.
Incap has been focusing on awarding contracts for laying pipelines to carry water in the first phase with a cost of about Rs 4,000 crore, leaving important components like cluster reservoirs and distribution channels to the second phase.
CM’s project copies Jalayagnam model
The intake well at a cost of Rs 200 crore for the Rs 6,000-crore drinking water project for Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy’s native district Chittoor is also included in the first phase.
“This is nothing but photocopying the mode of implementation of several Jalayagnam irrigation projects adopted by the YSR government,” sources said, adding that the second phase would be delayed as the government was intending to pose the project for funding by international agencies.
There are also allegations that the government has imposed tailor-made conditions to reduce competition and pick contractors of its choice.
“It prohibited joint venture companies from the bidding and also companies which has gone in for debt restructuring,” said a contractor, adding that most construction companies have gone in for debt restructuring at one stage or the other.
The government has taken up the project at breakneck speed by completing the Detailed Project Report, survey, environmental impact assessment within a year. Within a month of according the administrative sanction in October, the government is pushing to award the contract for Rs 4,000 crore by the end of November.
Incap managing director Venkatarami Reddy told this newspaper that JV companies had been debarred from participating in tenders because in several projects, lack of coordination and equal pace of executing the project were leading to inordinate delays.
“Similarly, we wanted to allow only those companies which are financially sound,” he added.
