Chandrababu Naidu accuses AP CM Jagan of conducting project review meetings instead of making field visits

Naidu claimed when he highlighted farmers’ plight, liquor sales despite prohibition, or women’s safety, Reddy held a review meeting the next day.

Expressing concern over stalled irrigation projects, Naidu said Reddy has done injustice to the sector with all projects halted due to his inefficiency.

Expressing serious concern that several irrigation projects in the State have been stalled, Naidu wondered how the Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy Government can be expected to construct projects when it is unable to manage even canals. “The Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy has done great injustice to the irrigation sector and all the projects have come to a grinding halt due to his inefficiency,” Naidu said.

He said when he spoke about Rayalaseema projects, the Chief Secretary hastily called a review meeting, while the CM did not find time and the Minister for Irrigation has no domain knowledge.

“What is the use of simply conducting review meetings? The Government should visit the project sites so that the ground reality will be known as to how worse the condition of the projects,” he said.

Naidu said that he had prepared a masterplan to interlink several rivers flowing through Andhra Pradesh to solve irrigation and drinking water problems but could not implement it due to lack of time while the TDP was in power, and claimed that the YSRCP government discarded the plan. “If the Vamsadhara, Nagavali, the Godavari, Krishna and the Penna rivers besides other 69 rivers in the State are interlinked Andhra Pradesh will be in top position in South India,” the former chief minister said.

Observing that the Sujala Sravanthi is part of an exercise to interlink the rivers in North Andhra, Chandrababu Naidu said that the TDP government has prepared a master plan to interlink all the rivers in the region like the Vamsadhara and the Nagavali along with their tributaries like Sarada, Varaha, Thandava and Eleru. “We have taken steps to supply water to Eleru by completing the Purushottamapatnam lift irrigation which is the part of the Polavaram project that is the bedrock of our State. If the Godavari waters are supplied to North Andhra the entire region will turn into a lush green area,” Naidu said.

“Through a power-point presentation I have presented all the facts before the public on the present condition of all the irrigation projects, on the percentage of works completed,” Naidu said and demanded the State Government to respond on the irrigation sector and on the completion of the remaining works of the projects. “If there is no response, you have no right to continue in power any longer,” Naidu said.

Pointing out that the TDP government from 2014 to 2019 had spent Rs 21,442 cr on irrigation projects in Coastal Andhra, Chandrababu said that the YSRCP Government had spent a mere Rs 4,375 cr from 2019 to 2023.

Naidu said that Chief Secretary K S Jawahar Reddy was forced to hold a review meeting on irrigation as the Chief Minister and the Minister for Irrigation were unable to hold the review meetings. “In these four years 198 projects, including 96 in Coastal Andhra and 102 in Rayalaseema, have been pre-closed. I demand a reply from the Government as to why these projects have been pre-closed and why orders have been issued to call for tenders again for five years,” he said.  Not even a single project has been taken up after the YSRCP came to power, the former chief minister said, adding that not even a single acre has been supplied irrigation water in these four years. “If an inefficient person becomes the Chief Minister this will be the condition of the projects and the people,” Naidu said.