No fewer than 72 developmental projects have failed to meet the target date of five years. How much more time will these take is anybody’s guess. People are not surprised at the inordinate delay because they are now used to believe that what the ministers say and whatever commitments they make will not be achieved within the time. Thus the Government is making a laughing stock of itself in the eyes of the public. One wonders on the sanity of policy planners. Why should they make the ministers commit when they know that even the infrastructure for the contemplated projects is not in place and a lot has to be done before the launch of the project. Evidently there is communication gap between the planners, executioners and the Government’s visions.
Chief Minster has been emphasizing the need of completing the developmental projects within the stipulated time. He often visits the sites personally and takes the stock of things. But it is not possible for a Chief Minister to visit all the sites all the time to keep up the momentum of development. There is slackness, inadequacy of foresight and the accountability. If an engineer knows that he will be made accountable in any case for the delay and that his promotion will be stopped and other punitive measures will be taken, we believe he will shed inertia and come out with full determination to complete the project. However if the Chief Minister cannot visit the sites , and of course he cannot, yet given the formula of collective responsibility, he can call an explanation from the concerned and take action. The people do not give much importance to what is spoken in the assembly and how forcefully or how lucid a minister or an MLA is in presenting the case. People want concrete work done on the ground and that too within the stipulated time. They judge the Government from this one and only standard.
Delayed completion of projects has now become a common feature of conduct of affairs in the state. It would be better that the ministers and MLAs concerned did not make any commitment about the date of completion rather than make a commitment, not fulfill it and then leave the people high and dry. They will lose more than they will gain from making unfulfilled promises. Elections for the Assembly and Parliament are round the corner. In any case, the vote will be cast keeping in mind the performance of the party in power or out of power. Apart from this there have also to be qualms of conscience. During six years tenure, a party is expected to achieve a lot concretely. It has also been seen in many instances that the allocated funds have lapsed because the project was not completed in time. Imagine a state like Jammu and Kashmir, backward by any standard, lapses enormous developmental funds just because of the callousness of the agencies involved. Seventy-two projects would have brought about sea change in the life of the people connected with them. But alas callousness of the functionaries and lack of accountability has done the damage.
We would advise the Government to take an overall view of delayed projects, find out the reasons why delay occurs in almost all projects and also suggest the ways and methods how this drawback can be overcome. It is a long time plan because development is an unending process. Therefore the Chief Minister would be well advised to constitute a committee of experts with two items as terms of reference. These would be why does delay happen and what should be done to control the delaying process. These recommendations should cover all the developmental plans and projects.
Last but most important is accountability. Accountability should not stop with official circles only. In particular the contracting companies should also be brought under the umbrella of accountability. No contractor who is a declared defaulter should be given any chance of bidding for another contract for Governmental work. This will also eliminate chance of corruption and bribery which are one of the reasons of delayed projects.
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