With huge numbers of projects being undertaken by various engineering organisations of the State Government, a move has been initiated to put in place an online project monitoring mechanism.
An application would be developed for online project monitoring from concept-survey-estimate-sanction-tender-agreement-quality inspection-measurement-billing-payment and completion.
Department of Rural Development (DoRD) Principal Secretary Madhu Sudan Padhi has chalked out a detailed programme to develop a transaction-based project monitoring mechanism to make the e-procurement process completely electronic. Padhi is having discussions with the officers and engineers of the DoRD.
Development Commissioner R Balakrishnan recently reviewed the proposed monitoring mechanism, said sources. This would make the entire tender process online, which is not yet done fully as contractors are making online application for the projects but visiting the offices for submission of earnest money deposit (EMD) where they are facing trouble from hooligans, who are trying to sabotage the e-tender process.
By making the e-procurement process completely electronic, the process would be integrated with a bank for EMD collection so that contractors would not have to physically visit the offices and face a tough time.
Secondly, the Government would develop a database of contractors and common application for online registration, up-gradation and renewal of licences of contractors.
At present, the registration process of contractors is done manually; so, the performance tracking of the contractors is extremely difficult as there is no coordination between various engineering organisations in award of work contracts. Many contractors are having multiple licences, which is not possible for the Government to track as there is no database.
Contractor profile is never updated by licensing authorities since it is cumbersome and time-consuming. Contractors are forced to present documents on each procurement, but once a contractor database is there, the documents can be updated and various organisations would be able to utilise the updated information from the database, said an official.
Thirdly, coding of assets and creation of a master database of assets such as roads, buildings, projects, bridges, canals and tube-wells and assignment of projects to the assets would be put in place. linking contractor database to project database and automatic updating of profiles of the contractors would be very helpful, the official said.
Finally, there would be an integration of the output of e-procurement as the input of Works and Accounts Management Information System (WAMIS) through appropriate web services.
An integration of WAMIS with Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS) for seamless payment of works bills without any post data entry would be done.
Development of Management Information System (MIS) Reports for various aspects for enabling appropriate authorities to monitor and take decisions would be much easier and faster, said a senior DoRD officer. The DoRD is moving ahead with implementation of such an online system and other departments would be able to adopt a foolproof system on project monitoring, said the official.