Hyderabad: The Centre which has declared the Polavaram multipurpose irrigation dam as a national project and has agreed to fund it, has started seeking details on the money spent by the state government on contracting agencies. It has said that it will start verifying the government’s claims.
The AP government has expressed serious concern over the Centre not releasing sufficient funds to complete the project by 2019. Union water resources minister Uma Bharati has said she would have a fresh look at the project after her meeting with AP Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu. Neither has happened so far.
Though it has been declared a national project, work on the dam is being executed by the state government which then submits bills to the Centre for reimbursement. Recently, the Polavaram Project Authority has begun writing letters to the AP government insisting on expenditure and payments to contractors as per the contract conditions.
In a recent letter to the AP government, principal secretary for water resources, Polavaram Project Authority member secretary R.K. Gupta wrote: “It may be ensured that the executed and paid works are continued to be maintained by executing agencies till such time the works are transferred to the department. In this regard provisions of the contract may be strictly adhered to.”
While releasing Rs 290 crore to the AP government, the member secretary stated: “The amount so released sh-all be adjustable to subsequent releases and reconciliation.”
He said the authority would carry out test checks of the bills for which payment had been made by the state government. In his letter, Mr Gupta said, “It is assumed that the payments have been made in accordance with the terms and conditions of the contracts. Any deviation in terms and conditions is liable to be recovered and shall be adjusted in all future payments.”
He insisted that audited reports of the works carried out under various divisions for the last two years should be made available within three months. In another intriguing observation, the letter stated: “The details of land acquistion, rehabilitation and resettlement and the expenditure incurred package wise as asked by the Authority is yet to be made available by the state government.
All the supplementary agreements entered by state government recently are also to be made available to the Authority to understand the entire billing process.”Efforts to reach AP government officials for a response to the letter did not succeed.
