Voice of Oppn being gagged : Jagan

Hyderabad, March 17: Reiterating that the voice of Opposition is being gagged in the Andhra Pradesh State Legislative Assembly, Leader of Opposition YS Jagan Mohan Reddy has said TDP government is hurrying through Pattiseema at the cost of Polavaram project and the calling of tenders is laden with unprecedented irregularities to favour a few business houses. “ The Opposition is denied mike at the slightest hint of reference to Chief Minister and TDP members are given chance to speak for protracted speeches and we are deprived the chance of putting our viewpoint on the floor of the House. After many adjournment motions and notices under various forms the discussion on Pattiseema was taken up but the mike was denied as the charges of irregularities are being exposed,” he told reporters here on Tuesday. While the very idea of Pattiseema project, which runs parallel to Polavaram objectives, is being questioned, Chandrababu Naidu has gone ahead with tailor-made pre-requisites to enable his favoured companies to qualify from a lot of many big players of infrastructure development companies. “He has allotted the tenders to his favoured companies though they have quoted 21.9 % excess while YSR has brought down the percentage from 10 to 5 way back in 2004. Now, Chandrababu Naidu has been justifying that 5 % excess is within the guidelines while remaining 16.9 % is a bonus given to the Company for completing in one year. This is a distortion of the worst kind as the tender is called to complete the work in one year and anyone can imagine the amount of corruption involved in calling of the tenders right from getting qualified to the cushion being provided to the contractors that the bonus remains intact if the delay is from the Government side. Many apprehensions were reported about the time of completion of the project which may take more than two years. The project itself puts the existence of Polavaram project at cross roads and in the Pattiseema project, not a single word is mentioned about water to Rayalseema. The very purpose of Polavarm is to take the flood waters of Godavari to Krishna delta and divert them to Rayalseema and this idea has been in circulation from 70s itself,” he said.