Whether a project is State sponsored or is sponsored by the Central Government, the ultimate benefit goes to the State about which hardly is there any scope for any speculations or conjectures. One thing critical to the completion of any Central Sector project is to what extent the State Government extends to it its reasonably sufficient cooperation. It is practically not possible that an authority or an ombudsman from the Central Government could be stationed at project sites of each State to oversee , monitor and appraise the progress of executing agencies of such projects and ensure that the State machinery proved less frugal in extending logistic support and cooperation. Having said so, it is quite painful to observe that as many as six mega Central Sector projects involving a cost of Rs.1000 crore and above, have been running in rough weathers in respect of two cardinal aspects, namely cost escalation and time overrun. Should it not cause ripples of concern and anxiety as the money involved in these projects is that of the people and if it so, should reasons too not be found out?
It is quite unbelievable that the major causes or the reasons of the projects suffering on these two fronts are on account of complete lack of necessary cooperation from the State Government. Executing agencies are stubbornly not adhering to their most important obligation towards the Union Government as to the levels of progress of the completion of work regularly submitted to them specifically periodically. It is despite clear cut instructions from the concerned Union Ministry in this regard.
What causes delay in the completion of the project, no particular inquisitive exercise at random basis is undertaken and timely remedial measures employed. However, as per the latest report of Union Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation , 10 mega Central Sector Infrastructure Projects costing Rs. 1000 crore and above are under execution in Jammu and Kashmir during the past several years. Ten projects are having anticipated cost twice as much as original cost . Not only this, four projects having original cost of Rs.14400 crore and “anticipated cost” of as much as Rs.40400 crore are facing time overrun of 12 months to 193 months . Like this, the intended objective of these projects could not be achieved till date even after enormous expenditurehaving already been incurred on them. That speaks about the quality of monitoring mechanism and treating these projects as “orphan children”.
It is reported that 1000 Mega Watts Pakaldul Hydro Electric project being executed by the Chenab Valley Power Projects Pvt.Ltd was approved in October 2014 at the cost of Rs.8112 crore to be completed by April 2020 but it is unlikely to be commissioned before October 2023 which means an inordinate delay of 42 months. What about the cost overrun?
The same fate is that of Alusteng (Srinagar) -Drass – Kargil- Khalsti- Leh project which is likely to face considerable delay in completion. Udhampur – Srinagar- Baramulla Railway Line Project too is unbelievably going to have the anticipated cost of Rs. 28000 crore as against the original cost of Rs. 2500 croreas in March 1995 . Its deadline was fixed for November 2002 but new timeframe fixed for December 2018 too is likely to be missed resulting in its completion taking unspecified and inordinate delay. Could this scenario be witnessed and allowed to remain untreated elsewhere in the country and if not , why only in Jammu and Kashmir State such situations are considered as the fait accompli?
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