Discord brewing within BJP over Narmada river project in Madhya Pradesh

Although the "cold war" between Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and state home minister Narottam Mishra has been going on for a long time over the Narmada river project, in a recently concluded high power committee meeting, they came face to face over the matter. According to reports, Mishra also went to Delhi to meet the high command with all the documents related to the matter.

Bhopal: Narmada river has often been in discussion about the movement started for the big projects built on it. Now once again it is in the limelight about two projects. It is also being reported that Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and state home minister Narottam Mishra are face to face on this. Although the "cold war" between both leaders has been going on for a long time, last Tuesday, in a high power committee meeting, they came face to face over the matter. According to reports, Mishra also went to Delhi to meet the high commands with all the documents related to the matter.

The issue of Narmada is hidden behind the breakup of more than Rs 15,000 crore. It is alleged that under political patronage, some companies were given two big projects of about Rs 8,400 crore under the exchange program. Under these projects, dams are to be built on the Narmada river -- first, the Chinki Barrage in Narsinghpur district and the other is in Khargone.

The bid of Rs 5434 crore for the Chinki project and Rs 2,959 crore for the Khargone project was issued in March 2021. The opening bid for both these projects was held on April 23, 2021, while the financial bid opening took place on May 13, 2021. The High Power Committee, headed by the Chief Minister, approved the bids of both these projects on June 8, 2021. Till the project approval, the matter was fine, but as soon as the matter was placed before the committee, home minister Mishra got furious and expressed his strong objection to it and called it "unnecessary at this point of time."

He also asked some questions to chief secretary Iqbal Singh Bains, in the presence of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, before leaving the meeting. However, both the projects have been approved by the committee. According to reliable sources and evidence, as many as 10 projects were prepared for approval by the Narmada Development Authority (NVDA) last year itself. During the then Kamal Nath government, about Rs 22,000 crore were to be spent on these ten projects.

Before the Kamal Nath government could issue its bids, the government fell down. As per reports, the Chinki project and the Khargone project were proposed for Rs 4,453 crore and Rs 2359 crore respectively. The estimated amounts of projects were fixed by the NVDA in February 2020. However, after all the technical research, a year later in March 2021, the budget for both these projects was increased by about Rs 1,578 crore. In this, the budget for the Chinki project was increased by Rs 978 crore whereas it increased by Rs 600 crore for the Khargone project.

Interestingly, the bidders for both these projects are the same. There should be a minimum of 3 companies as per the rules of the bid. Therefore, in both the projects, these three companies are Megha Engineering & Infrastructure Limited, Hyderabad, RVR Project Private Limited, Hyderabad and LNT Limited Mumbai. Khargone's project, worth Rs 2959 crore, has been given to Megha Engineering, in which Megha Engineering was L-1, while RVR Project Private Limited L-2 and LNT L-3.

On the other hand, the second Chinki project was Narsinghpur RVR L-1, which got the project awarded in its name by bidding for Rs 5376.09 crore. It has L-2 Megha Engineering and L-3 LNT Mumbai. Khargone Project's Megha Engineering & Infra. Ltd. was awarded only minus one per cent i.e. Rs 13.61 crore less than the estimated cost of tender for Rs 2929.69 crore. Whereas RVR Project Pvt Ltd had bid for Rs 2,943 crore, which was minus 0.54 per cent less than the SOR rate.

The LNT, which put the third tender in support of these two companies, had filled the financial bid of Rs 3,627 crore, going 22.56 per cent from the SOR rate. Similarly, for the second Chinki Project Narsinghpur, the same three companies had filled the bids, in which RVR Project Private Limited has won this project by bidding minus 1.08 per cent less than the SOR i.e. only Rs 36.41 crore less out of Rs 5434.79 crore. In this too, LNT had bid about two and a half per cent above the SOR.

Meanwhile, ETV Bharat collected information about the projects of NVDA from 2016 to 2020 and it was found that no project has been awarded above the rate of SOR. Generally, only 5 to 12 per cent of Blow SOR projects have been awarded in the last four years. The situation is the same for the tender of the Water Resources Department. Despite this, the company, in support of L-3, has put more amount in both the tenders than the SOR. Sources claim that out of the remaining eight projects, at least two projects will definitely be awarded to LNT.

On June 8, in the meeting of the High Power Committee chaired by the Chief Minister, home minister Narottam Mishra had lodged a strong objection raising the issue of corruption in both these projects. He alleged that everyone knows how many HDPE pipe is to be installed in the project and how much commission is consumed in it. The home minister also questioned the reasons for increasing the budget of both projects by more than 23 per cent.

It may be mentioned here that the Chief Minister is the chairman of the High Power Committee. Apart from the home minister, other ministers and administrative heads of all technical departments are its members.