Amaravati project cost rises after 5-year halt in work: CRDA
The officials of the Capital Region Development Authority (CRDA) submitted a report to chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu at a meeting on Monday on the status of the constructions
The cost of construction of various buildings in Amaravati, the capital city of Andhra Pradesh, has gone up substantially due to abandonment of the project by the previous YSR Congress party government in the last five years, officials aware of the matter said on Tuesday.
The officials of the Capital Region Development Authority (CRDA) submitted a report to chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu at a meeting on Monday on the status of the constructions, which were abandoned during the five-year regime of the previous Jagan Mohan Reddy government.
State municipal administration and urban development minister Ponguru Narayana said that during the previous Telugu Desam Party regime between 2014 and 2019, tenders had been called for various works worth ₹41,000 crore in Amaravati and works worth ₹38,000 crore were grounded.
“Works pertaining to construction of the state high court, assembly, residential complexes for high court judges, ministers, MLAs and All India Service officers, besides state government employees had been taken up. The government had paid ₹5,000 crore to the construction firms towards advance and approved payment of another ₹600 crore,” he said.
But all these work came to a grinding halt at various stages of construction soon after the Jagan Mohan Reddy government came to power. Even bills worth several crores of rupees for various agencies, which had taken up the works, had been kept pending, Narayana said.
“After the new government took over in June, a technical committee comprising chief engineers was constituted on July 24 only to formulate the norms to resolve such issues with regard to pending bills of the past tenders and close the matter permanently,” he said.
The minister said the five-year delay in completion of these abandoned works will now cause a huge burden on the state exchequer due to a steep rise in various costs. “According to an estimate, there will be at least 15% rise in the overall project cost,” he said.
Taking the original estimate of ₹51,000 crore for these works, the cost will go up by at least ₹7,500 crore for the completion of the pending works, leave alone the cost of works that are yet to be grounded.
For example, when the Jagan government stalled the Amaravati capital city project, works on 73 bungalows (38 for judges, 35 for ministers), 288 quarters for MLAs and MLCs and 144 bureaucrats’ residential complexes and work on 144 apartments for all India service officers, were going on and the contractors had to abandon them abruptly, following instructions from the government.
By that time, the CRDA had spent an amount of ₹444 crore on these buildings and was supposed to spend another ₹260 crore for their completion. According to the latest estimate, the present government will have to spend another ₹524.7 crore to complete the works. “It means, the government is forced to spend an additional amount of ₹264 crore to complete the abandoned buildings,” a CRDA official said on condition of anonymity.
Narayana said the technical committee submitted its report on October 29 with 23 recommendations to complete the works. “According to them, work cannot be resumed without cancelling the old tenders due to technical issues. So, we have decided to close all the old tenders without any further costs and call for fresh tenders,” he added.
Except for the high court and the assembly buildings, tenders will be called for all other works before December 31. For the high court and assembly buildings, tenders will be called by January next year. “All these works will be completed within the next three years, after which Amaravati will be one of the best five cities in the world,” he said.