After his predecessor Kamal Nath, it was the turn of Union Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu to take a dig at the CPWD for delaying completion of projects worth crores of rupees across the country.
Unhappy that as many as 400 out of 702 projects were running behind schedule, Naidu on Wednesday asked the CPWD to tone up its working and ensure timely completion besides maintain transparency.At a meeting held to review the functioning of the CPWD, Naidu drew up a 15-point charter of action to improve its functioning.
The review was undertaken with the objective of identifying reasons impacting efficiency of project i mplementation and to identify measures to ensure timely completion of works besides ensuring transparency and accountability, said a senior official from the Ministry.Naidu minced no words when he said that accountability should be enforced by taking action against officers responsible for delays in execution of works and also asked the CPWD to make payments to contractors through the electronic mode only.
It was noted that the projects were running behind schedule for various reasons like delay in approvals by local bodies, delay in handing over project sites, delay in release of funds by clients, environmental and forest clearances besides internal administrative reasons.
As per the action plan, a standard operating procedure (SOP) including specific time frames has to be evolved for each construction activity. In order to ensure transparency, project details should be made available in the public domain through online and information display boards at all work sites with details of project including cost, project schedule, major features, details of contact person for complaints, reasons for delay if any.
The minister also plans to write to all the Chief Ministers to enable design certification by CPWD architects to do away with further approval by local bodies to avoid delays.To do away with delays, the action plan suggests that file clearance should not take more than five days and in case of delay, reasons for the same to be recorded and action to be taken if the delay is found unjustified.
During UPA-II regime, the CPWD had faced flak from the then UD Minister Kamal Nath who batted for accountability and transparency in the working of the agency.