Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Dec 29: Strangulated by the political interference, the prestigious Ratle Hydroelectric Project is writhing to come out of the choked stage and tread the path of execution, which has been delayed by several months. Astonishingly, the top brass of the State administration continued to act as mute spectator at the cost of loss worth hundreds of crores of rupees to the company assigned the task of making this project a reality.
Now, as new dispensation is all set to take over the State it is hoped that all the roadblocks created by the people with vested interests would be cleared and comfortable atmosphere created for smooth and timely completion of this project.
This 850 Mega Watt project, which is expected to bring prosperity to the people of Jammu and Kashmir, is the first hydro power project in the country awarded on tariff based International Competitive Bidding process for development on BOOT basis for a period of 35 years.
Hyderabad-based company GVK Power, which offered the lowest tariff for generating power, was awarded the project. Former Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh laid the foundation stone of the project on river Chenab in Kishtwar district of Jammu region on June 25, 2013 for completion by February 2018.
However, no serious effort was made to ensure smooth execution of project. Rather one after another hurdle was created by the vested interests. Politicians of Kishtwar started considering the project as their personal property and making recommendations for adjustment of their workers in the project.
Even contractors and trade unionists left no stone unturned to derive undue benefit from the project by putting pressure on the management of main contractor GVK Power and sub-contractor Larsen and Toubro to adjust their favorite people without looking into the aspect that only highly skilled engineers and workforce is required for execution of project.
Though Larsen and Toubro engaged more than 300 locals as per their skills but demand for adjusting more and more people continued unabated. Due to this, neither GVK nor L&T found atmosphere congenial for smooth execution of work ever since the laying of foundation stone in June 2013.
After being strangulated by the repeated political interference, the GVK and L&T on July 11, 2014 abruptly stopped the work on the project for want of smooth atmosphere and conveyed their decision to Kishtwar district administration as well as State Government. Thereafter, top brass of GVK from Hyderabad visited State to take up the issues with the top brass of State administration but political interference was such that nobody came forward to listen them and the outcome of the same is that work on the project remained halted till date.
“Keeping in view losses running into hundreds of crores of rupees, L&T in the recent past got compelled to retrench all the locals engaged for the project. Even some top officers of GVK have either been transferred from Kishtwar to other projects in different parts of the country or their contracts have been terminated”, sources said, adding other staff members have been issued notice for retrenchment by December 31.
Even the local youth who had established small business units in Drabshala to earn livelihood are worst hit by the political interference as due to halting of work they are unable to pay installments of bank loan obtained for establishing units, sources informed.
A senior officer of GVK, on the condition of anonymity, said, “we don’t know when uncertainty will come to an end and work on the project will resume”, adding “we are now waiting for new dispensation to take over the State so that we can project our grievances for redressal”.
In response to a question, he said, “ball is in the court of State Government as unless congenial atmosphere is created we cannot resume the work”, adding “we have even agreed to the establishment of police picket, the sanction for which was accorded by the Home Department of State Government two months back”.
He, however, regretted that there was no follow-up on this proposal from the Home Department till date despite our eagerness to create whatever infrastructure required by the police personnel to ensure proper security of the project to avoid unnecessary interference.
Stating that company is suffering losses worth several hundred crores of rupees, the officer said, “such an interference was never seen in other projects being executed by the company in different parts of the country”, adding “political interference is responsible for even small groups of people entering the project site and openly threatening the workforce”.
When asked, he said, “since new public representatives have been elected from the area we are hopeful that they would realize the importance of the project and play important role in ensuring congenial atmosphere for early re-start of the work”.
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