AMARAVATI: The Centre has in principle agreed to grant the advance fund to put the Polavaram project work on fast track. The state government has been lobbying for the release of advance grant of 10,000 crore for the past several months in order to complete the project as per the deadline in 2023.
After several rounds of review meetings, Union Jal Shakti ministry secretary Pankaj Kumar on Monday directed the Polavaram Project Authority (PPA) and the Central Water Commission (CWC) to prepare and submit a detailed report on the issue within a fortnight. He wants the PPA to ready the projections based on the deadlines fixed for completion of each work of the project.
PMO has been closely tracking project issueThe state government already submitted a detailed report on the issue to the Centre. Jal Shakti ministry secretary Pankaj Kumar, reviewed the project progress with the senior officials of CWC and PPA in New Delhi on Monday and decided to route the state government's request to the finance ministry for approval.
In fact, the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) has been closely monitoring and tracking the issue with the different ministries following PM Narendra Modi's instructions.
Although the Centre repeatedly promised to fund the project cost, it had kept the granting the approval for RCE based on 2017-18 price level.
The state government contented that it was not possible to complete the project with 2013-14 price level as it was projected at just around Rs 29,027 crore. However, CWC estimated the cost at Rs.55,656 crore at 2017-18 price level. Subsequently, finance ministry and Jal Shakti ministry appointed a Revised Cost Committee to study the proposals of Technical Adivsory Committee (TAC) of CWC keeping in view of the escalation of the cost by over 50%.
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