Polavaram contract sparks row in Telangana ranks

HYDERABAD: A political controversy has been triggered by the award of a Rs 4,717 crore contract for the Polavaram project to an infrastructure company on Wednesday.The state government had on Wednesday awarded the Rs 4,717 crore contract for the second phase of the Polavaram project to SEW, a company with 50 years’ experience in infrastructure and construction.TDP MLA A Revanth Reddy said one of the directors of SEW, C Lakshmi Rajam, is the promoter of a company, Intercontinental Infrastructure Company, which holds a major stake in the Telugu daily Namaste Telangana.However, TRS leader M Raghunandan Rao said C Lakshmi Rajam had been a director in SEW four years ago and now held only a few shares in it.The Telangana movement is opposed to the Polavaram project as it benefits coastal districts while displacing people in Khammam district in Telangana.Revanth Reddy said the award of the contract pointed to a deal between the government and certain figures in the Telangana movement to end the Sakala Janula Samme.“This is nothing but mortgaging the Telangana movement for furtherance of business interests,” he alleged.“They used the Sakala Janula Samme to strike a business deal.” The MLA claimed to have evidence on how the deal was struck.Revanth Reddy also said SEW had no qualification to execute the contract.“We will produce all documentary evidence in support of our claim that an ineligible company was awarded the contract,” he said.He also alleged that the fact that investors in the Namaste Telangana had bagged the plum contract indicated that it was a benami company of TRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao.TDP leader Tummala Nageswara Rao said the contract was awarded without taking into consideration objections raised by other states and there were several irregularities in the award.Congress MP Ponnam Prabhakar refuted the TDP MLA’s allegation that the Polavaram tender was awarded to a Telanganite only to dilute the movement.“The Telangana movement is neither in the hands of KCR nor in the control of the newspaper,” he said.