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Poor performance in Physical & Financial progress, Maintenance, Execution Capacity in PMGSY, poor fund utilization : Centre criticized State Govt in March’14 for poor performance
Amitabha Sengupta
Poor performance in Physical & Financial progress, Maintenance, Execution Capacity in PMGSY, poor fund utilization : Centre criticized State Govt in March’14 for poor performance
PHOTO : PMGSY poor performance letter to Govt of Tripura

NEW DELHI / AGARTALA, November 4 (TIWN): During the 10 years of UPA Govt Tripura was rewarded several times by the centre as No 1(?) state in India as far as utilization and implementation of various centrally sponsored schemes. And state govt too did not leave any stone unturned to make widespread campaign about such awards. But how intelligently the state hovt suppressed the facts that towards the end of the UPA regime , Centre had raised questions about the utilization and physical progress under PMGSY. On 17th February 2014 Secretary of Ministry of Rural Develovement , Govt of India L C Goyal vide D.OUR.No.P-17025/55/2013-RC wrote a letter to the then Chief Secretary S K Panda(despatch no 8432) warning the state against 'High rate of Unsatisfactory(41%) works' under PMGSY during December 2013 .

Again on 19th March 2014 L C Goyal wrote another letter to the then Chief Secretary S K Panda.

In this letter vide DO#17026/6/2013-RC dated 19th March Secretary of Ministry of Rural Development, Department of Rural Development L C Goyal mentioned seven points in which the performance of Tripura is far from being satisfactory.

Poor Performance Report Details : 

        In his letter L C Goyal mentioned that in a Regional Review Meeting for all 8 North Eastern States including Tripura was held during 12-13 March 2014 at Guwahati, Assam and was attended by him along with the other senior officials of the Ministry and NRRDA. During the deliberations , the following issues pertaining to Tripura emerged, which need to be addressed on a priority basis , in order to meet the programme objectives and ensure improved implementation of PMGSY in Tripura:-

1) Habitation Details:- The state has not yet reconciled the habitations eligible under cluster approach even after the habitations in the international border blocks were made eligible under PMGSY in February 2008. The state should immediately send the details of such habitations to NRRDA and also reconcile the numbers and upload then in OMMAS.

2) Physical Progress:- Out of 4,793 km length of road works sanctioned by the Ministry, the State has completed only 2,743kms of road length up to January 2014) . 2050 km road  including 274km road length sanctioned prior to 2011 are still incomplete, which is a matter of serious concern. The State is required to prepare avreakistic physical & financial completion plan (quarter wise & phase wise), in consultation with the PIUs and Contractors and ensure that the targets of this completion plan are achieved.

3) Financial Progress:- Though the state reported an expenditure of Rs 230 Crore during the financial year 2011-12, it declined to Rs 190 Ctore during the financial year 2012-13 and further declined to Rs 97 Crore during the financial year(up to January 2014) despite large number of ongoing works in the State. The State is required to improve its absorption capacity to utilize the funds available under PMGSY. This can be done by creating new PIUs and strengthening the manpower of existing PIUs as well as by enhancing the contracting capacity

4) Quality Monitoring Mechanism:- High number of 'Unsatisfactory'(US) grading has been reported by independent quality monitors for the period of July 2012 to December 2013(28% by SQMs & 54% NQMs). It was further observed that the 'U'vgrading was largely due to lack of quality arrangements at PIU level... ...

5)Maintenance:- Though there is a 5-year maintenance contract in-built in the programme, the State has been lagging behind in spending the amount on maintenance, as per the contracts which affects the quality of the roads constructed under the programme . During the current financial year, though the State has credited 100% maintenance amount to the account of SRRDA as per the requirement, the expenditure till January 2013 on this account is only 32% , which is a cause for concern.

6) Execution Capacity:- The State does not have adequate execution capacity. The State is required to take immediate action to increase its capacity considering the projects in hand and future projects. This requires attention to proper staffing in the SRRDA and the PIUs as well as improving the contracting capacity... ... ...

7) Capacity Building:- Though the Ministry takes pro active role in capacity building of the engineers of SRRDA,PIUs and also contractors, your state has not been fully utilizing its allocated quota.

      From these unedited points given above one can easily guess that the campaigns made by state govt and ruling party from time to time is far from reality. Our valued viewers are intelligent enough to understand what the actual truth is. Not only that . On 23rd April 2014 P Manoj Kumar too wrote to the then Addl Chief Secretary( Public Works Department) G Kameshwara Rao asking for Action Taken Report(ATR) and to inform the specific action taken for improving the quality of road works under PMGSY. 

 

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