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Centre Smells Foul In Fresh Polavaram Tenders

Centre Smells Foul In Fresh Polavaram Tenders

Telugu Desam Party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu’s outburst against the Centre for allegedly creating hurdles to the construction of Polavaram project generated a lot of heat and dust in the state politics.

It has gone to the extent of media speculating that the honeymoon between the TDP and the BJP is over and both are likely to part ways soon.

The immediate reason for Naidu’s outburst is the latest letter written by the Ministry of Water Resources secretary Amarjit Singh asking the state government to keep in abeyance the fresh tenders called for Polavaram spill way and channel works worth Rs 1400 crore till the state clarified certain points raised by the ministry.

What is there in the letter? It says a lot of time was required for the new contractor to mobilise funds and machinery, but the state government had given him inadequate time for the completion of the work.

It asked the state to submit an integrated schedule of completion of all components of the project.

Moreover, the government should also take the consent of existing contractor Transstroy, as it has spare the machinery for use by the new contractor.

“But there was no reply from the government in this regard so far,” Singh said in the letter.

Moreover, the Centre seems to have smelt something fishy in the entire tender process.

“The time for selection of new contractor through fresh tenders is just three weeks. Such a small period is not desirable for such high value tenders.

It requires a minimum of 45 days to select the contractor so that maximum number of contractors will participate.

As on November 22, this tender could not be located on e-procurement site of AP,” Singh pointed out, indicating that Naidu might be indulging in favouritism in the awarding contract to the agencies close to him (read: Megha Engineering).

Since the letter exposed Naidu’s favouritism, he started firing at the Centre!

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