Proposal to involve people in auditing, monitoring quality of rural roads
Soon, citizens may act as monitors to assess and evaluate quality of rural roads being constructed under the centrally-sponsored scheme Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) in the country. They will be imparted training and provided with a tool kit to assess the quality of the road projects taken up under the rural road programme.
Taking a cue from the World Bank assisted-rural roads projects which have ensured citizen monitoring as a key component for evaluating the quality of work, the Union Rural Development Ministry has recently asked all the States to consider such an option in their region. The move follows the necessity for strengthening the quality control arrangements at all levels, keeping huge investment in construction of the roads.
“Since major construction defects are difficult to rectify after the project is completed, it is important that adequate arrangements are made for meticulous quality monitoring during execution of the projects. Monitoring by citizens will ensure better quality works,” a senior RD Ministry official said.
Currently, under the PMGSY, a three-tier quality control system has been put in place to ensure quality in road works. The first tier is at the District Project Implementation Unit (PIU), the second tier involves quality monitoring at the State level, and the third tier is of National Quality Monitors who conduct random tests on the quality of work.
But as this has not ensured quality work, the Ministry now plans to strengthen the quality monitoring mechanism with the help of citizen volunteers who will give their feedback on maintenance of roads constructed under PMGSY as is being done in World Bank-assisted road projects. To take all the States on board on the issue, it has shared a brief on interim report on the project ‘Citizen Monitoring of Rural Roads constructed under PMGSY in World Bank States’ with them.
Asking them to share their observations, it has pointed out how the project in three States —Meghalaya, Jharkhand and Rajasthan — is being implemented by the Bangalore-based NGO, Public Affairs Centre (PAC). With its State partners, the PAC is monitoring the PMGSY roads in their respective localities and providing an authentic citizen feedback to the system.
“This was like a fourth-tier of quality control in addition to the three-tier system that is in place in PMGSY. This fourth tier monitoring mechanism complemented and supplemented the work of the higher tiers, and thus the entire programme benefits from the contribution from the citizen volunteers," said the official.
The project focuses on empowering citizen volunteers to monitor and evaluate their PMGSY roads by understanding the process of road construction, getting trained to use tools and techniques to measure parameters of road dimensions, and generate data on respective roads by CMATs, which in turn is used for analysis and interpretation vis-a-vis road quality.
Audit of completed roads was carried out by using a field audit inventory consisting of a set of observations interspersed with tests audit equipment, added the official.
He said a total of 177 citizen volunteers were given vigorous training in a two-day workshop, both on and off site, to impart knowledge and skills for monitoring and auditing of 70 PMGSY roads identified (30 in Rajasthan and 20 each in Meghalaya and Jharkhand). After the workshop, each team was provided with a tool kit and datasheets to observe and record the qualitative and quantitative aspects of their PMGSY roads.
"They observed 30 roads under various stages of construction and 40 completed roads. The findings were recorded in datasheets provided to the PAC for analysis. This report provided a glimpse of qualitative and quantitative status of the roads monitored by the citizens. This also keeps pressure on officials to ensure quality work," the official said.