Amaravati: Andhra Pradesh Irrigation MinisterP Anil Kumar on Monday said that the Union Government has the responsibility of completing the construction of Polavaram project including the Rehabilitation and Resettlement (R&R) package.
“The state government will appeal to the centre to take up the Rehabilitation and Resettlement (R&R) package too,” said Anil Kumar.
This comes after the recent negotiations between the state and central departments, it was revealed that the earlier TDP government had accepted the then central government’s cabinet meeting resolution to exclude R&R component from Polavaram project cost and to pay irrigation component at 2014 cost only. At that time, two of the TDP MPs were in the central cabinet as ministers.
Irrigation minister Anil Kumar slammed that the then TDP government had at first compromised on Polavaram project expenditure and started crying foul after 2018. He said that Polavaram is a national project, it is to be built by the central government, but the then state govt lead by TDP had taken up construction, in order to loot on the name of commissions.
“Despite doing very less work, TDP govt had boasted of completing more than half the construction which is an outright white lie,” he said.