Andhra Pradesh CM Jagan Mohan Reddy appeals to the irrigation department to help curb corruption, calls for reverse tendering

With an emphasis to eliminate the irregularities that took place in the irrigation sector during the previous TDP regime,  the newly appointed Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Jagan Mohan Reddy, at a review meeting of the Irrigation Department on Thursday appealed to the irrigation officials to help the new government in cleaning up the mess by exposing the lapses and instances of tendering with excess rates.

"I would felicitate those officials who reveal the facts to save money to the government exchequer. The state government would call for reverse tendering immediately. Everyone is answerable to people and stressed the need to curb corruption," the Chief Minister said.

In the presence of Principal Secretary of Water Resources Sasibushan Kumar, Engineer-in-chief M Venkateswara Rao, Govt Chief Advisor Ajay Kallam, Special Chief Secretaries PV Ramesh, Adityanath Das, CMO Additional Secretary K Dhanunjaya Reddy and Irrigation Chief Engineers of all districts, the Chief Minister reiterated the extent of corruption faced by the people in last 5 years under the TDP rule and appealed to the masses to take steps to do away with any kind of anomalies.

"Everyone knows several scams took place in irrigation tenders in the past five years and the works were allotted for higher prices. A third party inquiry would be conducted all the irrigation projects where irregularities took place and the state government would go for reverse tendering to save money."

As nearly 2000 TMC of Godavari flood water was going to waste during the rainy season. He asked the officials to come out with proposals to divert the Godavari waters to the available reservoirs like Srisailam, Nagarjuna Sagar and other available reservoirs adding that the Polavaram project could store only 200 TMC of water.

The Chief Minister also asked the officials to prepare a report on priority projects for each district. Upon the officials explaining the ongoing projects in the districts, Chief Minister furthermore enquired about their present status and money needed for their early completion. He stressed the need for cutting down rates and asked the officials to prepare plans as per the decision of the government.

Reddy directed the officials to consider supplying drinking water through pipelines to prevent pollution as the number of tanks getting polluted due to increasing Aquaculture.

"Several people complained about pollution of drinking water during his Padayatra in both Godavari districts," he said.

The officials said that the state government has released Rs 50 crore towards the protection of cofferdam of Polavaram project during the coming rainy season.

On June 4, the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister had also met the acting Chief Justice of the High Court, C Praveen Kumar requesting him to constitute a special judicial commission to bring about reforms in the tendering policy. Alongside he also asked for one high court judge to be allocated for the commission to ensure that all forms of corruptions have been curbed and to bring back public money into the exchequer.