HYDERABAD: Chief minister Kiran Kumar Reddy on Saturday refused to be drawn into the controversy surrounding the award of the Rs 4,714 crore Polavaram contract and the motives imputed by Opposition parties.Replying to a question on whether calling off the Sakala Januala Samme had any bearing on the award of the contract to the SEW-Patel consortium, the chief minister, at a press conference in New Delhi, said; “Don’t ask me such questions. I am in no way concerned with it. By finalising the work in favour of the lowest bidder, the government has saved Rs 600 crore. I am concerned only about the benefit that acrrued to the government.”He said only the financial bid was decided and the empowered committee had to finalise the tenders and submit it to the government for taking a final decision. “Nothing is over yet. The process has only begun,” he said. There is an empowered committee comprising the chief secretary and principal secretaries of finance and irrigation which will look into it, he said. Then there is also the court to take a look at it, he said.He said after the Central Waters Commission (CWC) finalised the estimates for the project at Rs 16,010 crore, the government called tenders for spillway work for Rs 4,714 crore. “A few companies bid for the work. the technical and financial bids were opened,” he added. He disputed the argument that Polavaram would harm the interests of Telangana.The project has been designated to divert 80 tmc ft of Godavari water to the Krishna basin as a result of which 35 tmc ft of Krishna water would be utilised by Karnakata and Maharashtra in upper reaches and the remaining 45 tmc ft in the Krishna would be available to Rayalaseema and Telangana districts, he said.No Comment on T-Cong Leaders’ Criticism The chief minister refused to react to the criticism he faced from his own party MPs and MLAs on the Telanana issue. “I will not react before you. I will take them up at party fora,” he said.He refused to divulge details of the conversation he had with party president Sonia Gandhi earlier in the day.“There is no point in asking me such questions since there would be no answer from me,” he said.He did not respond to the question on who would be the party nominee for the election to the Legislative Council seat vacated by K Rosaiah after he was appointed governor of Tamil Nadu.On his one-on-one meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, he said he sought clearance for applications for coal and gas linkages sought by companies setting up power generation units.He sought the Centre’s support in regulating fertiliser prices, particularly DAP and complex, as the prices have gone up steeply in the last one year.The chief minister also requested the Centre to support construction of 25 lakh MT of godown space to meet the storage requirement of increased food grain production besides support to the SHG women movement by providing 7 percent interest rate loans on par with farmers.
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