FINMIN TO WEB-MONITOR INFRA PROJECTS
New
The Times of
With the focus of the Congress-led UPA government shifting to time-bound completion of its action plans, the finance ministry is set to revive a web-enabled infrastructure monitoring system where it would help mandarins in North Block assess progress of a project at the click of a mouse.
Having the capability of GIS mapping, the UN-supported initiative would help officials in the finance ministry to identify causes of delay and the point of disruption, if any, in case some implementing agency is missing deadlines.
The system, developed by the Department of Economic Affairs in the finance ministry primarily for monitoring externally aided projects, has the capability of GIS mapping giving the overall picture of infrastructure projects being implemented in a particular state up to the district level.
The project called Coordination and Decision Support System (CDSS) is designed in a manner where it can generate reports and charts with different permutations and combinations as per the requirement of the government. It allows uploading actual project pictures and documents. The software is able to track both financial flows and the physical progress.
All stakeholders such as the implementing agencies in states, the Department of Economic Affairs which is monitoring the progress, and other states and central ministries concerned have been given passwords where each can on its own upload data related to its field.
However, pilot projects launched in four states earlier did not take off owing to disinterest shown by various stakeholders in uploading required information in the database. This time, however, there is a proposal to make it legally binding on all the agencies concerned to adhere to the government's instructions on online submission of progress reports within a deadline.
A joint secretary level officer in the finance ministry has been made in charge of the project and a budgetary allocation of $800,000 has been approved from the UNDP for the April 2008 to December 2009 period.
The state rollout of the monitoring scheme was done in March 2008 where necessary training was imparted to users from various agencies and ministries. It is likely to help the government in building capacity and improving coordination among various stakeholders.
HUDA MULLS ONLINE PLAN APPROVALS
The Times of
Following up a whole slew of people-friendly measures, the Haryana Urban Development Authority (Huda) is now planning to introduce online approval of building plans. Come January 1, 2010, and the facility would be available to all allottees in the state, chief secretary Dharamvir said on Monday.
Approvals would be granted within minutes of a soft copy being routed to the authorities, provided the plan clears a preset checklist. In case of any hiccup, allottees need not despair as, according to citizen’s charter, Huda already has in place a 21-working day deadline for granting approval of building/building plan.
To begin with, the facility would be launched at the estate offices of Panchkula, Gurgaon and
Notably, on any given day, estate offices have a pendency of at least 500 to 1,000 such applications. Other than staff shortage, approvals may also get delayed because of the non-availability of field staff, who have the added responsibility of dealing with anti-encroachment drives and court cases among others.
’’Once operationalised, it will do away with entire paper work and also bring in much required relief to allottees, who would no longer have to run after the field staff,’’ Huda chief administrator T C Gupta claimed.
A three-member team comprising senior town planner Nadeem Akhtar, district town planner Naresh Mehtani and senior architect M Bhardwaj has been set up to visit the Pune-based development agency which is preparing the software. ‘’Once the team is back, the project would be launched within a month or two,’’ he added.
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