AMARAVATI: Chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy is likely to visit the Polavaram project next week to take stock of the progress.
This will be the chief minister’s third visit to the project site after taking over the reins two years ago. The state government is keen to complete the project works by June 2022.
Although the chief minister wanted to visit the project site on Wednesday, he put it off due to adverse weather conditions in West Godavari district.
The chief minister has made it clear the project should be completed as per the schedule notwithstanding reimbursement issues to be resolved by the Centre. “We have also directed the line departments to complete the resettlement and rehabilitation works for evacuation of the oustees by August,” said water resources minister Dr P Anil Kumar Yadav.
While the government has proposed to complete 40,3160 cubic meters of concrete work within 12 months starting from April 2020, the contractor, MEIL, has completed 5,58,073 cubic meters of concrete work.
“We surpassed the targets notwithstanding the challenges posed by Covid-19 lockdown, migration of workforce and floods received in the last year,” said Angara Satish, project general manager.
MEIL continued the pace with more commitment as it completed 85,300 cubic meters of work in May. It completed 1.2 lakh cubic meters of concrete work by June 2020 against a target of 70,000 cubic meters.
“We have completed 83,000 cubic meters of work in February, 2021 against the target of 47,000 cubic meters,” said Satish.
The construction of the world’s largest spillway bridge slab was also completed ahead of schedule—42 of the 48 gates have already been set up. These gates are to be fitted with 96 hydraulic cylinders.
