Andhra Pradesh government will do well to mark the idiom ‘Err on the side of caution’. Its young Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy, in a tearing hurry to expose corruption during his predecessor Chandrababu Naidu’s regime, is already getting caught on the wrong foot.
INFA Service
On last Thursday 22nd August 2019, he got a rude shock when the Andhra Pradesh High Court struck down the order terminating Rs 3,216 crore hydro-power irrigation project of Polavaram on Godavari river to Navayuga Engineering Co. Ltd to execute.
The pre-closure order issued by related Corporation was suspended. Order for reverse tendering got canceled, as the company argued having already spent Rs 398 crores.
No delay and project will be completed by November 2021.
The government’s argument of having the right to go for fresh tenders as it will cut the project’s cost and enable more bidders didn’t hold water with the court. Naidu have the last laugh as he said: the CM had taken it up as “a prestige issue to prove there was a lot of corruption in the project works.”
