Monitoring development

For quite some time we have been proposing the Government to evolve a mechanism through which monitoring of various developmental projects in the districts could be possible. We propounded the suggestion because we have often noted most of the developmental schemes are either left half way or not brought up to completion within the period set forth from the beginning. Delayed projects naturally lead to escalation of costs that ultimately become forbidding even for the Government.  We cannot rule out maneuvering by the contractors and the Government functionaries together ensuring delayed completion under one or the other pretext. Another reason for delayed completion of the projects is the arbitrary behaviour of the contractors. They stop work at sweet will even   if they are not in league with the functionaries, putting forth one or the other pretext and even without waiting for the advice from the Government. Contract terms are deliberately made vague giving fair chance to the contractors to wriggle out of the cost estimates at a given point of time and then ask for enhanced rates forcing the Government to spend crores in extra. The Chief Minster has taken a serious note of delaying process and leaving some vital projects incomplete.
Under the proposed monitoring mechanism, a Committee of 11 members of each district headed by the District Development Commissioner has been constituted with the clear and important purpose of monitoring the progress of the projects in hand. Such committees will be constituted in all the 22 districts each under the chairmanship of respective Deputy Commissioner. The Government has conveyed the terms of reference to respective Deputy Commissioners. They are supposed to convene the meeting of the Monitoring Committee at least once in a month.
Obviously, the main purpose of forming such committees is to make the Deputy Commissioners responsible for all projects underway in their respective districts. However, the fact is that even without instituting the committees, the Deputy Commissioners, by implication, were responsible for the progress of developmental schemes in the districts. Now the difference is that previously he was indirectly answerable for failure or success of any project and now he is directly responsible and answerable to the Government. The crux of the matter is that the district level officers, all, have to shoulder the responsibility of developmental projects. The realization has dawned upon the Government after the Chief Minister held several meetings of the District Development Boards and came to know personally, where the matter of developmental schemes was getting bottle up. In his several meetings with the bureaucrats, he found that a good number of projects have been listed in the category of incomplete or abandoned schemes for various reasons. The district level committee will now pin point the reason why a particular project has been abandoned half way or why it was not completed in time. The Government expects the committee to go into the financial details of the projects. The Government has taken this step because most of the contracting companies complain of escalation of construction cost and their inability of keeping the terms of the contract in place.
We appreciate the new mechanism of monitoring the progress of the projects. However, we need to see how far the committee can deliver and what will be the percentage of progress in the execution of the projects.

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