By Desaraju Surya
By any count, the most ambitious and equally controversial “Jalayagnam” programme undertaken by the Andhra Pradesh government has been a disaster so far.
Controversies, legal battles, environmental concerns, adverse observations by the Comptroller and Auditor General over large-scale financial misappropriation, lack of statutory clearances, inter-state disputes, natural calamities and, above all, a grave financial crunch have contributed to the grandiose programme going way off the track over the last six years.
When initially conceived in 2004 by the then Y S Rajasekhara Reddy government, the Jalayagnam – dubbed by the rulers as a “massive water conservation ritual” – was meant to provide water for irrigation to an additional 82 lakh acres of agricultural land in Andhra, Rayalaseema and Telangana regions of the state through 32 major and 17 medium projects in five years (by 2009). The initial cost estimates for these projects were Rs 65,000 crore.
Six years after the programme was launched, the government had already spent Rs 53,206 crore but could irrigate only an additional 26.25 lakh acres as per the latest count. By now the number of projects under the programme has gone up to 88, including 44 major and 30 medium, to irrigate an additional one crore acres while the cost too escalated to a staggering Rs 1,79,679 crore. Of the total, 39 have been identified as “priority” projects that will be completed in the first go.
The revised deadline for completion of the Jalayagnam programme is year 2014 – when general elections are due in the state – but, by all means, even that deadline will be missed, Irrigation Department officials admit.
All the works have come to a virtual standstill as the state government owes over Rs 6,000 crore to the contractors executing the projects. Given the severe financial crisis, the government is finding it difficult to clear the dues and let the works progress, the officials say. “We have cleared dues amounting to over Rs 1,500 crore so far and will be clearing the balance in a phased manner,” a top official of the Department said.
“We have completed 12 irrigation projects in the last six years, including four major, under Jalayagnam. These projects created a capacity to impound an additional 295 tmc ft of water which in turn contributes to an additional agricultural production worth Rs 8,850 crore per annum in the state,” Major Irrigation Minister Ponnala Lakshmaiah claimed.
Chief Minister K Rosaiah or Lakshmaiah never lose an opportunity to proclaim that Jalayagnam continues to be the government’s “flagship” programme and will be completed at all costs.
There is a rider, of course: the Government of India should be magnanimous to accord “national status” to at least three major projects so that the state can get 90 per cent of funds as grant.
Take the case of the multi-purpose Polavaram irrigation project on river Godavari.
For the last six years, the state government has been desperately seeking national status for Polavaram even as the project cost has shot up from Rs 10,151 crore in 2009 to Rs 17,600 crore as per the latest estimates. But there has so far been no word from the Centre on granting national status to the project while neighbouring Orissa is strongly fighting against it claiming that the project would lead to submergence of many villages on its side.
AP and Orissa are now locked in a legal battle in the Supreme Court over Polavaram.
Another major controversial project, the Pranahita-Chevella Lift Irrigation Scheme, has not got any statutory clearance from the Centre even two years after it was launched with a lot of fanfare. The project cost too shot up from Rs 33,500 crore to over Rs 40,000 crore now, official sources say. AP is not in a position to complete this project on its own and is looking desperately towards the Centre for according “national status” and bearing 90 per cent of the cost.
This project alone needs 3466 MW of power to lift water from Pranahita, a tributary of river Godavari, to a height of 1343 meters, resulting in an annual recurring expenditure of over Rs 2,300 crore.
“It is utterly foolish to take up such a project involving huge recurring expenditure. Can the government assure that it is ready to bear the annual expenditure,” questioned Lok Satta Party president and MLA N Jayaprakash Narayan.
But, the government has simply brushed aside his contention and asserted that it would go ahead with the project “for the betterment of Telangana.”
Pranahita-Chevella was mired in another controversy when it came to light that an astounding Rs 1,100 crore was paid to a private consultant for preparation of the detailed project report of which Rs 600 crore was already paid. The Public Accounts Committee of the state Legislature saw red over this and forced the irrigation department authorities to stop further payments.
Alarm bells, however, started ringing in the state government when Union Water Resources Minister Pavan Kumar Bansal stated that only one intra-state project would be funded under the category of national project. Chief Minister Rosaiah immediately wrote a letter to Bansal recalling that the Pranahita-Chevella project was among the 25 medium and major irrigation projects included in the Prime Minister’s package and was thus eligible for financial support under the Accelerated Irrigation Benefits Programme.
Still, there has been no response from the Centre on this, official sources in the Chief Minister’s Office said.
Another major project that has overshot several deadlines is Pulichintala on river Krishna. Meant to stabilize an ayacut of 13.5 lakh acres in five districts in Krishna’s command area, this project was supposed to be ready in 2007 but not even 60 per cent of the works have been completed yet, official sources admit. “The coffer dam of the project got washed away in floods at least three times leading to inordinate delay in completion of Pulichintala,” they say.
Such examples are one too many in the Jalayagnam story. And, it has no end in sight.
