Legislators, bureaucrats required to be made accountable for creating crisis
Completion of pending works by May 2019 a daunting task
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Oct 25: Though State Administrative Council (SAC) has approved an amount of Rs 8000 crore for completion of all pending projects yet need of the hour is to formulate a comprehensive policy with stringent measures to check languishing projects syndrome in future. Moreover, legislators and bureaucrats, who are largely responsible for the prevailing situation, are required to be made accountable for creating financial crisis for the State.
The SAC headed by the Governor Satya Pal Malik in its meeting convened on September 5, 2018 had, as one time exception, approved an amount of Rs 8000 crore for completion of all languishing projects in the State by raising loan through a new company titled as Jammu and Kashmir Infrastructure Development Finance Corporation.
Since then the High Powered Committee comprising of Administrative Secretaries of Finance, Planning, Public Works and Public Health Engineering Departments has cleared over 1000 projects of different sectors for funding through the Corporation.
“However, there is absolutely no focus on evolving a comprehensive policy with stringent measures to ensure that such a problem doesn’t emerge in the State in future especially after formulation of political Government”, official sources told EXCELSIOR.
“Majority of the languishing projects are the creation of legislators, who for the sake of appeasing the people got the works started from time to time without any provision of sufficient funds for their completion. Moreover, the bureaucrats in order to remain in the good books of the legislators bowed before their unjustified act and started execution of work despite being aware of the fact that fate of such projects will continue to hang in balance for want of funds”, sources said.
They further said, “all this makes it imperative for the Governor to put in place a comprehensive policy with stringent measures to make legislators and bureaucrats accountable for creating such a crisis for the State in future”, adding “such a mechanism cannot be evolved during political setup in the State as such Governor should seriously look into this aspect and take necessary steps”.
“Such a policy should also have a provision of initiating action against the bureaucrats, who fail to get projects of their respective departments completed within the stipulated time as large number of present languishing projects are those which failed to get adequate and timely attention during the execution stage thereby not only missed the deadlines but also led to cost escalation”, sources further stressed.
When contacted, several Administrative Secretaries, while putting weight behind evolving of such a mechanism, said, “generally the projects fall in the category of languishing ones because of the political intervention”, adding “no doubt public convenience and benefit is kept in mind at the time of start of projects even without sufficient funds but it is also a fact that thousands of projects started with the intervention of politicians could not be brought to timely completion as such public aspirations have remained unfulfilled till date”.
They drew the attention towards the report of Planning, Development and Monitoring Department, which reveals that six departments namely PW(R&B), PHE/I&FC, School Education, Higher Education, Youth Services and Sports, Health and Medical Education and Tourism together accounted for nearly two thirds of the total unfunded burden and the projects in these 6 departments alone account for nearly Rs 4000 crore.
What benefits these projects of immense importance for the general public have given so far? they asked, adding “the prevailing situation is beyond the imagination and unless politicians are made accountable story of languishing projects will not come to an end with financial assistance of Rs 8000 crore”.
Meanwhile, completion of thousands of languishing projects within the time framed fixed by the Governor would be a daunting task for the administration. In the SAC meeting of September 5, 2018, it was categorically stated that all departments should implement works in a speedy and time bound manner to finish them preferably by May 2019.
“No doubt large number of projects have been cleared by the High Powered Committee during its three meetings held till date but work on majority of them is yet to be started”, sources informed.
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