Date:12/02/2005 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2005/02/12/stories/2005021207950400.htm

Andhra Pradesh

Irrigation tenders opened

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD, FEB. 11. Close on the heels of the Supreme Court judgment clearing the 21 major irrigation packages awarded to nine firms, the State Government on Friday opened the tenders received for 36 medium packages at Erramanzil here.

The Government mood was upbeat. The 21 packages cleared by the court are worth Rs. 4,992 crores, covering prestigious projects like Polavaram Right Canal and Yellamapalli taken up for 16.5 lakh acres. Now that the decks have been cleared, the nine firms can go ahead with works.

The 36 medium packages for which the price bids were opened today are worth Rs. 2,285 crores and related to Janjhavathi, Bhima Lift, Handri-Niva, etc.

The exercise concluded amid a group of contractors and their followers who swarmed around the office. A pleasant surprise for the Government was that most of the prices quoted were found lower than the estimates.

Officials heaved a sigh of relief that the "excess" in all the 300-odd bids received was found below the Government-allowed 5 per cent while in two bids it was significantly lower.

The only package which saw excess was a second package for Hundri-Niva but it was only 0.4 per cent beyond the stipulated 5 per cent.

The Engineer-in-Chief, B. V. S. Prakasa Rao, announced that the saving on this count was Rs. 420 crores.

However, there was no response to the notices relating to Kinnerasani and Bhupatipalem canals.

The Principal Secretary, Irrigation, C. V. S. K. Sarma, said that the Government would ground packages worth Rs. 23,000 crores by the month-end.

More packages

This would be against the 157 packages into which the 26 pending irrigation projects were split for execution, all valued at Rs. 26,951 crores.

Mr. Sarma said the price bids for medium packages opened today would be processed and parties selected in the next two days by two committees, the first a technical one common to all packages headed by the Irrigation Advisor, P. Sitapati Rao, and the second a high-power committee headed by himself in the case of medium packages and by the Chief Secretary for major packages.