VIJAYAWADA: The state government on Wednesday removed engineer-in-chief Venkateswara Rao from the
Polavaram Project and
Polavaram Project Authority
(PPA).
The engineer-in-chief has been monitoring the work on the right and left canals of the projects, besides being a member of the PPA.
Now, with the fresh orders, the government has appointed chief
engineer
Sudhakar Babu, as a PPA member and in-charge of the
Polavaram
right and left canals. This would be in addition to the regular head work, which the chief engineer has been monitoring.
The decision comes in the wake of the PPA criticising the government’s decision on reverse tendering. PPA chief executive officer R K Jain had not only objected to the government’s re-tender but also said that the decision would delay work and lead to price escalation. Jain had also gave a clean chit to the contractor, Navayuga Group, which had won the case in the high court against its removal from the project.
The PPA had also sent a report to the central government against the reverse tendering, which is now being studied by the Union Jal Sakthi minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat.
The government believes that Venkateswara Rao could not defend the state government’s decision in the PPA meet and hence removed him from the two positions. The two responsibilities have now been handed over to the chief engineer, who is expected to defend the state government in the Polavaram Project Authority meetings.