AP's water resources department struggles to revive Rs 1200 crore stalled projects
Both the YSRCP and NDA governments took similar decisions to suspend works with little or no progress, resulting in the wastage of several hundred crores of public money. Instead of finding ways to get ongoing works back on track, successive governments have initiated new projects for political reasons. This has not only placed a massive burden on the exchequer but also resulted in the draining of public funds.
Taking the issue seriously, the Water Resources department conducted a study to identify how many works were stalled due to poor progress and the amount already spent on them.
The study found that works worth Rs 1200 crore were left unfinished in recent years. The department noted that the abrupt cancellation of works had only caused wastage of money already spent. "We can suspend works if they did not commence, as there is no loss to the exchequer.
But canceling works that had already started and for which bills were partially paid causes huge losses and does not yield the desired results," said a senior official.
The previous YSRCP government decided to cancel all works that were either not started or had progress below 25 per cent. Surprisingly, some works with progress as high as 24.5 per cent were also suspended under pressure from local leaders. In fact, several SEs and CEs reported progress by splitting work packages, which caused more loss to the exchequer since the overall percentage fell below 25 per cent. "Most works in the Water Resources Department are divided into different packages, and irrigation water can be extended to end-users only if all packages are completed.
While some packages showed 80 per cent progress, others reported only 10-15 per cent. This caused the overall progress to fall short of the 25 per cent target, leading to cancellation of the entire work," explained a senior official.
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