Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, July 9: As the avoidance of critical and important components while preparing Detailed Project Reports (DPRs) of various works has been resulting into escalation of project costs and putting additional burden on the State exchequer, the Planning and Development Department has issued fresh set of guidelines to all the Administrative Secretaries and the District Development Commissioners for strict adherence while taking up new projects.
Official sources told EXCELSIOR that Planning and Development Department has been observing during the past quite some time that critical and important components were being ignored intentionally or unintentionally by various departments while preparing Detailed Project Reports (DPRs) of various schemes and works.
Due to this, the infrastructure thus created remains unutilized for the intended purpose for want of important components for long time and creates difficulties for the Planning and Development Department to arrange additional funds required to put in place such components, sources said.
“It has also been observed by the Planning and Development Department that avoidance of critical and important components like sanitary fittings, electric fittings, furniture and furnishing, central heating/cooling, landscaping, fencing and approach roads at the time of preparation of Detailed Project Reports also results into revision of the DPR after the completion of all other works and subsequent escalation in the project costs”, sources said.
Quoting some examples, they said, “in some districts the buildings of the Mini-Secretariat, health centres and Community Information Centres have been completed but in the absence of critical and important components the same are in the lock and key thereby defeating the purpose with which this infrastructure was created”.
Similarly, in several areas of the State the bridges despite being completed are unable to serve the intended purpose in the absence of approach roads as DPRs of the bridges were prepared but the expenditure to be incurred on the construction of approach roads was not included in the initial DPR/estimated cost, sources further said.
“The ignorance of necessary components as per functional requirement also results into executing agencies approaching the concerned administrative departments for revision of the DPRs and this finally leads to delay in putting the infrastructure to use”, they informed.
Taking serious note of this, the Principal Secretary, Planning and Development Department, B R Sharma has issued new set of guidelines to all the Administrative Secretaries, District Development Commissioners and Heads of the Departments for strict adherence while taking up new projects/schemes.
“It has been observed that while preparing the DPRs for new projects, important and critical components are invariably not included in the initial DPR/estimated cost finalized by the executing agencies. After the execution of the projects, it becomes very difficult to revisit/enlarge the scope of the project and load additional components on to the project cost”, the circular said.
In such a situation, it becomes difficult for the competent authority to accord the administrative approval to the revised DPR, which is not fully financially tied up. Moreover, for the Planning and Development Department, the challenge to mobilize extra funds to meet the enhanced cost becomes insurmountable, the circular reads.
“All the departments are enjoined upon that while preparing/formulating the DPRs of the new projects/schemes, all the necessary and critical components should be included in the scope of the project and reflected in its estimated cost at the initial stage itself so that there is no necessity of including additional components of works at the later stage, which leads to avoidable revision in estimated cost”, the circular further reads.
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