JALAYAGNAM: The scene so far

Desaraju Surya
Hyderabad: 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.

KONIJETI ROSAIAH: A FRAGILE CHIEF MINISTER

Desaraju Surya
Hyderabad: Konijeti Rosaiah had always been comfortable playing second-fiddle to any Congress Chief Minister in Andhra Pradesh over the years.
He, however, finds himself ill-at-ease being the Chief Minister as was evident in the last one year that he has been in the hot seat of power.
As he himself noted a few days ago, it had indeed been a “tight rope walk” for Rosaiah as Chief Minister, given the pulls and pressures from different quarters.
From a rather strong situation, the state has plunged into a vulnerable position in just one year because of various factors, beginning with the tragic death in a helicopter crash of a powerful Chief Minister.
The ruling Congress is in total mess; the strife over the demand for bifurcation of the state has only gone into a pause mode and threatens to snowball in the months to come; the state is still facing the economic recession blues and governance has become the biggest casualty leaving the people in the lurch.
Rosaiah himself is plagued by health problems, leading to doubts over his fitness to rule.
Rosaiah ascended the Chief Minister’s throne on September 3 last year following the death of Y S Rajasekhara Reddy in a helicopter crash on September 2.
It took more than three months for him to actually settle down in the new position and take control of the situation as the state moved from “one crisis to the other.”
By the time he could gain a grip on the administration, the Chief Minister was confronted with trouble from within his party in the form of a virtual rebellion from Kadapa MP Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, who set his eyes on the Chief Minister’s chair.
Though he left the Jagan issue to be handled by the Congress high command, Rosaiah could not breathe easy as he was not given the complete authority to rule, unlike his predecessor.
Everyone initially acknowledged that Rosaiah, given his vast political experience, was an “able administrator” though not an “able leader.” But now, given the sorry state of affairs, his credentials as an administrator too are at stake, political observers point out.
Bureaucrats say there has been a lack of “cohesiveness” in the administration in the last one year.
“Administration has become CM-centric when both N Chandrababu Naidu and Y S Rajasekhara Reddy were at the helm of affairs. Being powerful leaders, their writ ran large and the entire administration functioned according to their diktats. Bureaucrats used to look to the Chief Minister for everything previously as all instructions came from him directly. It’s not the case anymore,” a top-ranking IAS officer noted, explaining the “slackness” that is currently apparent in the functioning of the government.
The Chief Minister’s attempts to tone up the administration through a bureaucratic shake-up did not bear fruit for one reason or the other. “This has also left the bureaucracy in a state of despondency, leaving a telling impact on the administration,” a high-ranking IAS officer pointed out.
Rosaiah is famous for managing the state’s finances effectively given the fact that he presented not less than 16 Budgets over the years. As Chief Minister, who continues to hold the Finance portfolio, he is finding it an uphill task to continue the development and welfare agenda left behind by his predecessor.
All the major development projects have virtually come to a standstill as the government owes lot of money to the contractors.
Uncertainty prevails even over the welfare programmes as the subsidy bill has become too much to bear for the government.
Rosaiah, however, sought to “re-assure” everyone that not a single programme initiated by Rajasekhara Reddy would be abandoned. He is also unwilling to admit that governance has been paralysed in the state. “I am doing my best and touring the state. Even my ministers are doing their job,” he pointed out.
The general perception about his administration in the state is, however, entirely different from what the Chief Minister feels.