AMARAVATI: Even as the state government keeps exerting pressure on the Centre to clear the Revised Cost Estimates (RCE) for the Polavaram project to complete it by 2023, Centre has asked the state government to submit the fund requirement details at least to finish the first phase work at 41.5 metres level. The Union ministry of jal shakti has asked the water resources department to provide the details for both 41.5 metres level and 45.72 metres level to make a fresh assessment.
Sources said the state government requested the Centre to first clear the RCE to avoid inordinate delay in execution of works. The Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) of jal shakti ministry had approved the proposal sent by the state government to put the revised cost at 55,500 crore almost a year ago. Subsequently, the revised cost committee which was appointed following the advice of finance ministry, trimmed the cost to 47,725 crore. Surprisingly, none of the proposals were cleared by the Centre.
While the finance ministry still stick to its argument that it would pay the project cost only at the 2004 price level, jal shakti ministry has in principle agreed to prevail upon the finance ministry to grant the budget at 2017-18 price level. However, nothing is going smooth with regard to the release of funds from the Centre as Polavaram Project Authority (PPA) and Jal Shakti ministry keep rising queries after queries without sending the RCE to the finance ministry for final nod.
Meanwhile, Polavaram project Dam Design Review Panel (DDRP) conducted a virtual meet with the project officials on Wednesday and discussed the status of pending designs. Irrigation engineer-in-chief C Narayana Reddy, and Polavaram project SE Sudhakar Babu requested the DDRP to clear the designs early in order to commence the work. They urged the panel to clear at least designs for the Gap-II and lower cofferdam.
