The functioning of the country’s premier construction agency, CPWD, is now open for public scrutiny and monitoring. And the factsheet is not inspiring.
Across the country, as many as 194 CPWD projects out of 630 projects, costing over Rs 5 crore, are moving at a snail’s pace with over two-year delay. At least, 122 projects are delayed by one to two years, 84 by 6-12 months while another 118 projects are running behind the schedule by up to six months. Only 112 are progressing as per schedule.
The move to open up the working and ensure transparency in its functioning came following direction of the Union Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu, who in a review meeting last month, expressed concern over delays in the execution of various projects.
For the first time, the construction major has placed in public domain full details of its 7,676 works costing Rs 40,679 crore on its website www.cpwd.gov.in.
The CPWD website furnishes full information about the ongoing works including name of the work, sanctioned amount and date, targeted date of completion, expenditure incurred as on date, name of the executing agency and CPWD’s Project Head with contact details, reasons for delay, if any, said a senior UD official.
As directed by Naidu, the Ministry has drawn up a 15-point charter of action to improve CPWD’s functioning. As per the action plan, a standard operating procedure (SOP) including specific time frames was to be evolved for each construction activity. The Minister had also sought project details 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.
To do away with delays, the action plan suggested 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, the official added.
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, he said.