Cabinet approves cost hike for five irrigation projects worth ₹6,000 crore

The current ruling dispensation, however, has claimed that it has set specific parameters for granting such RAAs and they will be given to only those projects nearing completion.

The state cabinet on Monday gave its nod of revised administrative approval (RAA) to five irrigation projects worth ₹6,203 crore. RAA is sought in projects where the scope of the projects in terms of design or costs has undergone significant changes from the time it was planned. Granting RAAs have been controversial in the aftermath of the multi-crore irrigation scam, wherein cost escalations of hundreds of projects were cleared in violation of norms and without due diligence by the previous Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) government.

The state cabinet on Monday gave its nod of revised administrative approval (RAA) to five irrigation projects worth ₹6,203 crore. (Sanchit Khanna/HT PHOTO)

The current ruling dispensation, however, has claimed that it has set specific parameters for granting such RAAs and they will be given to only those projects nearing completion.

“The cost escalates due to the thin spread of funds and hence leads to incompletion of projects over the years. The time overrun in turn leads to increases in the cost of land acquisition and the engineering deviations, among other reasons. The projects that were approved on Monday are nearing completion and we expect the revision to be the final one for most of them,” said an official from the water resources department.

Four of the five RAA proposals that were cleared are from Jalgaon district, while the fifth is in Thane district. The Thane district-based Bhatsa irrigation project, which supplies water to Mumbai, has also been given the approval for its sixth RAA, worth ₹1,550 crore. The cost of this project was ₹13.68 crore when the project was first planed in 1969. This irrigation project involves building two dams on Bhatsa river and Mumri river and constructing the left and right canals of the Bhatsa dam.

Waghur and Hatnur irrigation project on Upper Tapi phase-1 project were given seventh and fourth RAAs with their estimated cost of ₹2,288 and ₹536 crore, respectively. The cost of the Waghur project when it was envisaged in 1976 was estimated at ₹1,228 crore, while the Hatnur was estimated to be completed in ₹12.09 crore, when proposed in 1967. The estimated cost of the project kept escalating, resulting in the RAAs for the additional cost over the years.

Similarly, the cabinet also gave its nod to the RAA of ₹861 crore to the Varangaon-Talvel irrigation project in Jalgaon. The project was envisaged at the cost of ₹223 crore when it was planned in 1998. The cabinet also gave its approval to the RAA worth ₹968 crore to the Shelgaon Barage project.