Jalayagnam contractors to stop work

Hyderabad
Nov. 10: Jalayagnam, the flagship programme of Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy is likely to come to grinding halt with the contractors deciding to stop irrigation works from November 23 because of the inordinate delay in clearing bills worth Rs 4,600 crore. Following this, the Chief Minister, Mr K. Rosaiah, chaired a review meeting of the ongoing irrigation works.
The major irrigation minister, Mr Ponnala Lakshmaiah, later said that the government had always given priority to pay the bills of the contractors. He added that Mr Rosaiah made it clear that Jalayagnam would continue to be the flagship programme of the state government.
However, the Builders’ Association of India, which also held an emergency meeting on Tuesday, said contractors were facing lot of difficulties after the death of YSR. “We did not face any problem when YSR was alive since he used to adjust the money for Jalayagnam,” said Mr P. Mohan Reddy, honorary chairman of the association. “After his demise, the irrigation projects have been completely neglected and payments of bills have also been stopped.”
He urged the government to pay bills above Rs 1 crore in the order in which they were submitted.
The association leaders said that cheques issued by the contractors in the hope of getting payments from the government were bouncing, landing many of them in criminal cases.
The state government, which took up Jalayagnam with an estimated cost of Rs 1,50,000 crore, has spent Rs 47,000 crore so far.
The contractors alleged that the government had also stopped payments for other projects such as Rajiv Swagruha.
Meanwhile, Mr Rosaiah directed irrigation officials to focus on projects which were in an advanced stage of completion.
The Chief Minister reviewed projects in Rayalaseema region and directed officials to ensure release of water to the full area under irrigation of 2.83 lakh acres under Telugu Ganga, Guru Raghavendra and Gundlakamma by June 2010. He also identified Chitravathi balancing reservoir, Lingala, Pulivendula branch canal, Mylavaram and Srisailam Right Branch canal as projects into which partial release of water should be taken up by the same period.

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