NEW WEB SYSTEM TO DETECT ERRING BUILDING CONTRACTORS
Bangalore
The Hindu Business Line
Contractors slipping on deadlines in completing the construction work accorded by the city corporation can now easily be detected, thanks to the service provider’s move to roll out a web-based project monitoring system.
As part of its IT initiatives in improving quantity and quality of services, the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has deployed the system to ensure real-time monitoring of progress of work at remote construction sites, the BBMP Commissioner, Bharat Lal Meena, said.
This would help provide proactive alerts by detecting any slippages early and thereby help in applying mid-course correction. The progress of work at these sites can be independently uploaded to the website by the contractor and the inspection agency sta tioned there, he said.
The central monitoring cell can instantly access this data from the website and take appropriate action to minimise time and cost overruns.
Real-time monitoring on a continuous basis is expected to bring in more quality consciousness among contractors, apart from simplifying logistics and significant savings in travel time and manpower deployed to monitor the work, according to T. Sheshad ri, IT advisor, IT department.
He said the system’s greatest advantage is enabling people participate in the monitoring process in civic projects.
SMART CARD PLAYERS SEEK PARTICIPATION IN MNIC PROJECT
New Delhi
The Economic Times (Bangalore edition)
Private smart card manufacturers on Wednesday sought participation in the prestigious Multi-purpose National Identity Card Project (MNIC) aimed at providing unique identity cards to all citizens of India over the age of 18.
The smart card forum of India, an association of about 140 smart card makers, said 95% of the Indian personalisation industry is out of the project because of an interpretation, totally different from an earlier interpretation of the technical committees’ recommendations, was applied to the MNIC pilot project.
The MNIC project is being implemented by the Ministry of Home Affairs through the registrar general & census commissioner. The pilot project has been given to consortium of public sector units (CPSU) comprising of Bharat Electronics Limited, ITI and Electronics Corporation of India (ECIL) by the RGI.
Scafi honorary secretary Jagdish Rajpurohit demanded a review of the pilot and said opening the project to open market mechanism can not only ensure that it is done correctly but also will plug all “wasteful expenditures”.
The pilot project, Rajpurohit said: “Extended beyond even reasonable levels because it was handed over to total new comers BEL, ITI and ECIL who had no prior experience to run a project of this magnitude and expertise”.
N VITTAL TO HEAD UID DEMOGRAPHIC DATA STANDARDS PANEL
Subrahmanyan Viswanath, Bangalore
Deccan Herald
The trail-blazing initiative to provide unique identification number to all citizens of the country has picked up feverish momentum lately.
On his part, Unique identification Authority of India (UIDAI) Chairman Nandan M Nilekani has been travelling across length and breadth, meeting stakeholders to prepare them for the massive exercise sensitising them on the onerous mission.
The UIDAI, likewise, has also been equally busy under Director General & Mission Director R S Sharma putting in place various panels to meet its mammoth task.
In pursuit of this ambitious goal, the UIDAI has now formed two committees to ensure the authority meets its mandate within the timeline it has set for itself.
The authority has set up a nine member Biometric Strandards Committee headed by National Informatics Centre Chairman B K Gairola. Likewise, it has also constituted a 16-member Demographic Data Standards & Verification Procedure Committee with former Central Vigilance Commissioner N Vittal as Chairman. The Gairola panel will also have ICICI’s Pravir Vora, Registrar General of India’s C Chandramauli, RBI’s A M Padagaonkar, among others including IIT Bombay and Kharagpur faculty.
Vittal will spearhead the team comprising ICICI Securities’ Madhavi Puri Buch, Department of Information Technology’s S R Rao, Hyerabad Rural Development Principal Secretary K Raju, and other officials drawn from New Delhi, Assam, Jharkhand, including IIM Lucknow faculty.
According to Sharma the charter of biometric standards committee is to ensure interoperability of devices, systems and process used by various agencies that use the UID system. The key requirement of UID is to minimise/eliminate duplicate UIDs and improve the efficacy of service delivery.
The committee before framing the standards will review existing standards and modify/enhance them to achieve the goals for de-duplications and authentication.
Similarly, the demographic data standards panel will review existing ones and refine it to meet the purpose of UIDAI. The two panels, in turn, can set up technical committee and working groups for conducting/developing proof of concept studies. Both the panels have been given 90 days time to submit their final report, Sharma said.
MCD TO MAKE PAYMENTS ONLINE
New Delhi
The Tribune
To curb corruption in payments and avoid frauds similar to the recent ghost employee scandal, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has decided to make all payments online.
Under the new system, Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS), the amount due to the contractors will be credited in their accounts within 30 minutes of work being completed. Based on the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) guidelines, the RTGS system will be extended mainly to all suppliers and contractors working on various MCD projects to do away with the tender mafia.
According to the contractors, this new system will eliminate the complex process wherein the middlemen used to delay the process of payment. The civic body has witnessed constant agitation by contractors and suppliers over its failure to clear their outstanding dues.
No comments:
Post a Comment