Rs 300 crore kickbacks in Pattiseema: YS Jagan

In a strong and pointed attack on the way Pattiseema project bids are carried out, Leader of Opposition YS Jagan Mohan Reddy has said all rules were bent to benefit the contractors and at least Rs 300 crore worth of kickbacks were received in the process.

“Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu is rushing through the Pattiseema project with an eye on Rs 300 crore kickbacks and has been covering very goof-up in the bids to the project which threatens the existence of Polavaram and put farmers at a disadvantage,” he said while addressing a public meeting in Vijayawada on Thursday on the second day of the three-day Project Bata.

The Chief Minister has changed the pre-requirements only to suit two of his most favoured contractors for the bids and when they have quoted  21.9 % excess, he backed them by stating that 5 % excess is eligible and the remaining 16.9 % is a bonus, YS Jagan said.

“The bonus is a bogus propaganda. The terms of the tender itself is for one year and how can the Chief Minister state that bonus is being given to the contractors for completing the project in one year unless he has received kickbacks to a tune of Rs 300. The Chief Minister is bringing up the Pattiseema project at the cost of farmers’ interests. This is a total sell out. His concern is only to benefit the contractors and not the farmers, he said.

“When we asked the engineers the capacity of Prakasam barrage, we were told it was 3 TMC which means there is no storage facility for the flood waters of Godavari en route anywhere. The floods to Krishna River will occur mostly during the three months of August, September and October.  Godavari too will be in spate more or less during the same time and the waters will flow into the sea.

Storing this flood water during floods and shifting it later down up to Rayalaseema is the aim of Polavaram. The project has a storage capacity of 194 TMC of water and will divert 80 TMC water from right bank to south and 24 TMC to Visakhapatnam from left It is obvious from the State Government policies that it intends to put such a useful project in cold storage. The works on Polavaram are not progressing. Once Pattiseema project is started, as per the Godavari River Water Disputes Tribunal, we have to forego 35 TMC of water to Maharashtra and Karnataka. Still the State is going ahead with Pattiseema only to benefit the contractors and for the kickbacks,” he said.