The Central Public Works Department (CPWD) has decided to outsource maintenance functions in select areas of Delhi to begin with and a roadmap will be evolved to implement other recommendations after detailed examination. The decision has been taken following the report of Ernst & Young, which recommended to the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (HUA) gradual outsourcing of 'maintenance functions' of the construction major, CPWD to reputed private agencies to improve its efficiency and effectiveness.
With this decision, the maintenance and renovation works of Government buildings, bungalows of Ministers and MPs will be given to private operators.
According to report, more than 50 per cent of the total strength of CPWD of 21,806 personnel are currently engaged in maintenance works which account for only 20 percent of its turn over by value.
The recommendations of Ernst & Young report have been made in the context of over 50 percent of works being implemented by CPWD getting delayed, lower levels of satisfaction over maintenance services, 70 percent of projects being of less than Rs 5 crore value each, 47 percent of total staff located in Delhi Region.
This is the first attempt to improve the working of CPWD since it came into existence in 1854 when lord Dalhousie established a central agency for execution of public works and set up Ajmer Provincial Division. CPWD builds and maintains public buildings in the country. It also fulfils India's international commitments in public work.
While suggesting that CPWD could continue as an attached office of the HUA Ministry, the Report advocated radical reorganisation of business processes and decision making systems for ensuring completion of projects in time, transparency, accountability, ease of working, better coordination etc. In place of the present eight levels of processing and decision making, two to three layers have been suggested by categorizing projects into small, medium and large.
As against present mode of selection of Director General(DG) of CPWD based on seniority, it has been recommended that DG be chosen from a panel of senior officers. Extensive use of technology in the form of integrated IT based 'Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)' system has been recommended for effective monitoring and resource utilization.
Since a large component of projects undertaken by CPWD are commissioned by various ministries and other agencies of the Government, the Report has suggested clear definition of obligation of such agencies like ensuring encumbrance free land, approvals etc. Proper integration of different wings of CPWD like civil, electrical, horticultural and architecture cadres under common command is among the other recommendations.
The Report stressed on the need to redefine the focus of CPWD so as to promote it's competency in the core area of construction for which maintenance of residential properties need to be outsourced.
The Urban Development Ministry, the nodal Ministry for CPWD, has floated a request for proposal or RFP to study working and reorganisation of the department. The terms of reference include studying various aspects such as constituting CPWD as an autonomous central works board on the lines of Railway Board, separating the department's maintenance functions and giving it to a not-for-profit company to be constituted as a subsidiary under the department.