The Polavaram Project Tenders Drama
posted on Oct 29, 2011 @ 8:27PM
Ever since the Polavaram project has been conceived, it started attracting one controversy or the other. For years it has been lying in cold storage, till late YSR took initiative and started working on it. Now the project has again got into one with Kiran Kumar government awarding its contract to SEW Patel–AMR, a joint venture company. The other joint venture company that participated in the bid, CGGC-Soma, approached the High Court aggrieved with the decision of the engineer-in-chief claiming that the company which got the contract did not possess required expertise and the qualifications.
The A P High Court on Friday sought to know from the state government by Saturday whether it will answer the technical objections raised by the petitioners. Denying the allegations, counsel for SEW company, P P Rao told the court that the petitioner had made a representation with the authorities immediately after the technical bid process was over but without waiting for a response, knocked the doors of the HC. Arguing the case for Soma company, senior counsel C V Mohan Reddy said that the representation made by them was only a casual one and in fact the bid document did not contain any such provision for representation. The state can go ahead with the agreement without even bothering to give a reply to the representation, he said. Now the question is, why the said aggrieved company knocked the doors of High Court prematurely and what it actually seeks from the court.
It is quite common when a huge project work is bagged by a rival company, its competitors tend to create fuss over the issue. But in this case, it is clearly obvious that professional rivalry is not the real reason behind raking up of the controversy. It can not and will not ever be proved that KCR has bagged the contract in lieu of Telangana nor he is going to lose much if the court cancels the tenders. For the time being focus has been shifted to Polavaram project contract sidelining the T-issue. While pro-Telangana protagonists will be busy debating whether KCR has ditched them, others can happily get back to their normal life. Government too can heave a sigh of relief and get busy in further manipulations. It's a win-win proposition for everyone, say the analysts.