Kamalapadu PSP Scam? Project Cost Soars from Rs.5,470 Crs to Rs.8,161 Crs
Gottipati Ravikumar is the Power Minister only in name. But who is actually taking decisions in his department? Some Andhra Pradesh government MLAs are also commenting that he reportedly tells some of his close associates that he has no control over anything and that all the orders are coming from above. It is an open secret that the Power Department has now become a key centre of corruption in the Andhra Pradesh government. Even though several reports about corruption in the Power Department have appeared in the media, there is no one to take notice of them. TDP MLAs themselves are saying that, as has been happening from the beginning, the alleged looting under the coalition government is reaching new levels. As stated from the beginning, a major alleged irregularity has been set in motion in the Kamalapadu Pumped Storage Hydro Electric Project in Yadiki mandal of Anantapur district. Initially, the cost of this project was estimated at Rs. 5,470 crore excluding GST. Now, it has been increased to a staggering Rs. 8,161 crore.
Sources say that even in the initial estimates, a plan had allegedly been drawn up to provide an additional benefit of around 20 percent. But now, with the estimated cost being increased further and excess amounts included, it has been taken all the way up to Rs. 8,161 crore. As a result, contractors are set to make profits running into thousands of crores of rupees from this single project. The same amount will ultimately become a burden on the people. A senior IAS officer revealed that political leaders holding key positions in the government and officials are allegedly going to share among themselves the thousands of crores included in the increased project estimate. Department sources said that if one or two such projects come to light, organisations like GENCO, which are already deeply caught in a financial crisis, are certain to go bankrupt. The Power Department allegedly postponed these tenders repeatedly in order to ensure that the project was awarded to those they wanted, and has now completed the process as planned.
It has become an open secret within the government that the entire affair was allegedly carried out according to a pre-planned sketch. Recently, the Andhra Pradesh government granted administrative approval for the revised estimated cost of the Kamalapadu Pumped Storage Hydro Electric Project at Rs. 8,161.69 crore. Along with this, it also issued GO 64 awarding the project to ECOREN Consortium, which emerged as the L1 bidder. Interestingly, although AMR is another key partner in this project, the name of the company has not been mentioned anywhere in the GO. Another strange aspect is that the head of ECOREN Project was recently arrested and sent to jail in a GST evasion case. Despite this, the government issued the GO without any hesitation, increasing the project cost arbitrarily by thousands of crores and allegedly making it possible to divert huge amounts of money to such a company.
Officials are commenting that this shows how arbitrarily the government is functioning. Another unusual aspect here is that GO 64, announcing the increase in the project’s estimated cost as well as the allocation of the project, was issued on the night of August 19 itself. However, it is now noteworthy that the Power Department has removed this GO. The question being raised is whether this was done to prevent the alleged irregularities from coming to light. When the GO website was checked before filing this report on Saturday morning, the page contained only the GO number, while the entire subject matter was blank. Why was this done?
