In Fresh Setback to Jagan Govt, Machilipatnam Port Contractor Approaches HC Over Cancellation of Contract

Amaravathi: The proposed Machilipatnam Port contract agency on Wednesday challenged the Andhra Pradesh government’s decision to cancel their work contract recently. On August 8, the Jagan government had issued an order to cancel the contract citing inordinate delay of works as the reason. The decision was further ratified by the state Cabinet on Wednesday.

After the Cabinet’s decision, the agency in question, M/s Navayuga Engineering Company Limited, filed a petition seeking stay order on the Jagan government’s decision. The agency urged the high court to declare that the government order was unlawful. The petitioner mentioned that the government had failed to handover the required land for the construction of the port.

In its petition, Navayuga strongly objected to the state government’s argument that the land was given with all facilities but the contract agency was not in the mood to kick off the works. It further contended that “total land to be handed over is about 5,324 acres and so far the government has handed over 412 acres only. “We have been asking for remaining 4,912 acres. But violating the General Norms and Contract Agreement Conditions, the government cancelled our agreement unilaterally. We have already spent Rs 436 Crore on various works in this project”.

The agency urged the High Court to cancel the state government’s orders considering all these issues.

The previous Telugu Desam Party (TDP) government had started the construction of the port and the pylon was inaugurated on February 7, 2019. The Navayuga Engineering Company bagged the project to develop the port on build-own-operate-transfer basis for a time period of 50 year. The concession agreement was signed on June 7, 2010 and the port was proposed to be developed over land measuring upto 4,800 acres. Port Conservancy Powers were vested with the M/s Machilipatnam Pvt Limited (SPV).

The Navayuga Engineering Company was also assigned the contract work Polavaram National Irrigation Project, for which the Jagan Govt recently decided to go for Reverse Tendering cancelled works worth Rs 3,216 Crore. The Navayuga had also challenged the decision in Andhra Pradesh High Court and got interim stay orders but the final judgement is awaited in the case.

In a meeting held on Wednesday, the Jagan Cabinet ratified the cancellation of Polavaram Hydel Project works and the Machilipatnam Port.