Former chief minister YS Jaganmohan Reddy has been repeatedly accusing that unprecedented floods in Vijayawada are nothing but `Man made Disaster’, alleging failure of chief minister Chandrababu Naidu’s government in taking preventive measures.
However, records now made it clear that the destruction created by Budameru is due to the decisions taken by Jaganmohan Reddy’s government.
Soon after he became Chief Minister, he had canceled as many as 198 development works undertaken by the water resources department during Chandrababu Naidu’s regime with a stroke of pen. This was nothing but with a malicious intention of writing of any sign of Chandrababu’s imprint on development.
Among them are modernization works of Budameru canals. If the works are completed, the Budameru main canal would be widened to handle a flow of 45,000 cusecs from 15,000 cusecs. The embankments of the canal would have been strengthened. Today Vijayawada people were exposed to a great tragedy as those works were abruptly stopped by Jaganmohan Reddy.
YS Jagan started destroying water resources in the state after taking charge as Chief Minister. First, the contracting company for the Polavaram project was cancelled. Immediately after that, orders were issued on September 8, 2020, halting 198 development works undertaken by the State Water Resources Department, including Budameru, during Chandrababu’s tenure.
In that order, 12 works are in North Andhra, 24 in Godavari Delta, 7 in Polavaram Project, 51 in Krishna Delta System, 25 in NTR Telugu Ganga, 9 in Kurnool, 14 in Kadapa, 16 in Minor Irrigation and18 in Anantapur have been canceled in advance.
Jagan unilaterally took the decision to cancel all the works even though there were no reports from the authorities. Adityanath Das, Special Principal Secretary of the Department of Water Resources, was ordered to stop all the important works related to irrigation immediately.
The Budameru canal modernization works stopped include:
● Package no. 15-1-4 worked Budameru main canal from 24.000 km. to 42.500 km handed over to Raghava Construction under EPC system. As these works were stopped midway, the canal reached a worse condition. Singhnagar, Rajarajeshwaripet and other areas damaged in the current Budameru floods are within the scope of these works.
● Under the package no.15-1-4 part work, Budameru canal works up to Enikepadu were undertaken by NAS Abu Construction of Gudivada. These works have also been stopped.
● Under package 15-1-5 Budameru main canal works from 42.500 km to 50.600 km before Enikepadu expansion works were undertaken by Raghava Construction of Hyderabad. Jagan stopped these works from going ahead.
● Part of the same package was handed over to NAS Babu Construction of Gudivada. If all these works are completed, Budameru would be able to withstand any flood. The city of Vijayawada was not half submerged. About 6 lakh people will not be homeless.
