Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu has made it clear that the Polavaram project will be completed by 2027 despite all the financial difficulties. He also asserted that there is no truth in the campaign that the height of the project will be reduced. He said that the Center is also willing to release funds and is moving forward with suggestions and advice from experts and technical staff.
He said that the new diaphragm wall will be completed by March 2026 and construction works will begin from January. Chandrababu, who participated in the discussion on water resources in the Legislative Assembly, explained the efforts made for the Polavaram project between 2014 and 2019.
At the same time, he deplored the destruction done by the YSRCP government that came to power in 2019 with evidence. He said that if Polavaram is completed, drought can be checked and that he considered Amaravati and Polavaram as two eyes for AP. The CM said that he had decided to link rivers through Polavaram and reminded them that the project was declared a national project.
As the construction of Polavaram would be delayed, he said that he wanted to provide water to farmers through Pattiseema. He reminded them that the Pattiseema project was completed within a year and provided water to Rayalaseema. He said that he had taken responsibility for the construction of the Polavaram project so that there would be no delay.
He ridiculed the fact that the Irrigation Minister in the previous government did not know what a diaphragm wall was. He reminded them that 72 percent of the Polavaram work was completed between 2014-19 and that he had visited the Polavaram project in person 28 times. He said that he had reviewed Polavaram virtually more than 80 times and that if the TDP government had continued, Polavaram would have been completed by now.
Chandrabbu lamented that the previous government had announced that it was stopping the Polavaram project due to its bias against the TDP government. He accused that the previous government had stopped the project work due to stupidity and incompetence, and that the hardships they faced between 2014-19 were ruined by the YSRCP.
He said that during the TDP regime, more than 32 thousand cubic meters of concrete work was done in a single day. He recalled that the Polavaram diaphragm wall was completed in 414 days in the past. He alleged that the previous government did not listen to the central agency’s advice that there should be no rush, and that the diaphragm wall was damaged due to improper monitoring of Polavaram.
Chandrababu lamented that the evil thoughts of one person have become a curse to the state. He said that the state suffered a loss of Rs. thousands of crores due to the previous government’s mismanagement, and that only 3.08 percent of Polavaram work was done.
