Broadly speaking two types of projects run in a State including our State. These are (a) centrally sponsored projects, and (b) State Sponsored Projects. Though each category is governed by the rules and guidelines stipulated by the sponsoring authority, yet there are some common parameters that are taken into consideration in each scheme. In other words there is a culture of sorts that has to be observed when floating the schemes. An important component of any well-planned project is that of monitoring its progress because it is only through close monitoring that the Government comes to know the status of the project. It is also important from the point of unobstructed progress meaning if there is any hurdle that needs to be solved the Government can take action without loss of time. What has come to be realized seriously is the time frame within which a project should be completed if we want to escape the escalation of cost of construction and also escape the wrath of the public who are no more prepared to go on waiting endlessly for the completion of a given project.
Unfortunate as it seems, there are numerous projects, about 1500 of them which have not gone through physical verification process that is mandatory at least for Centrally Sponsored projects. We are informed that every Centrally Sponsored Scheme monitoring of the projects is mandatory so as to assess the financial and physical progress periodically. Similarly, the State Government is supposed to follow this mechanism in respect of projects being executed under State Budget. Why physical verification has not been made is a sordid story and has emerged as a big flaw in the implementation of the norms specified for each project. The practice observed by the Government till date was to engage the services of third party monitoring conducted through NABCONS-a subsidiary of NABARD. Third party physical verification was considered a satisfactory mechanism and the Government never had any complaint about it. But then suddenly there appeared a change in the established policy of the Government which now decided to discard this practice and let monitoring be conducted through officers of the Planning Department, Department of Economics and Statistics and Additional District Development Commissioners (ADDCs). We don’t intend to sit on the judgement of the functionaries to whom physical verification task has now been assigned but the results speak more than what we could explain. The result is that 1500 projects have so far gone without physical verification. Obviously, it means that the new mechanism devised by the Government has not worked as expected and the backlog has remained. When will the physical verification of these projects be completed is anybody’s guess.
There is no doubt that physical verification of such a large number of projects is a daunting task. However, we hope that the matter being of general public interest, the Department of Planning will become fully conscious of its responsibilities towards the Government and towards the people for whose welfare these projects are undertaken.
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