Cell to monitor all civil works

Cell to monitor all civil works

CM says ensuring quality and transparency in infrastructure projects is his top priority

Srikanth Hunasavadi. Bangalore



The state government is going all out to ensure that high standards of quality and transparency are maintained in infrastructure works being executed by various departments. In this direction, it will soon set up a monitoring cell, consisting of experts from non-governmental organisations among others, to keep a close watch on the implementation of various civil works.
The monitoring cell will maintain continuous co-ordination with the chief minister's office and get the latter crack the whip whenever it notices grave irregularities in the implementation of the civil works.
Announcing this here on Monday, chief minister BS Yeddyurappa said: "Close to 40% of the taxes paid by the people is spent on public works. The remaining amount goes towards various plans, officials' salary, transportation and other expenditure. What we are spending on public works will become a wasteful expenditure, if we don't maintain high quality in those works. People will revolt against officials if we do not take corrective steps."
The chief minister was speaking after inaugurating a workshop on "quality assurance in public constructions" organised by the task force for quality assurance in public constructions.
"The Karnataka government was the first to set up a task force to ensure maintenance of quality and transparency in public works. But even after that the quality of public works has not improved," he regretted. The chief minister also pointed out that the state government had also brought in the system of third party investigation in the implementation of public works but even this had not yielded the desired results. "So I have been forced to direct the chief secretary to constitute a cell with technical experts to monitor quality in civic works," he said.
Referring to the sand scarcity which was affecting the progress of all construction works, Yeddyurappa also vowed to eliminate the filter sand mafia. He added that the state would put in place a sand policy based on the Tamil Nadu model soon.
All these days the state had governments which turned a blind eye to the misdeeds of officials but henceforth there would not be any compromise on the issue, he said and added that negligent and erring officers will be punished. The chief minister also took the opportunity to assure officials that they would face no problem from politicians. "I will streamline everything. I will put an end to frequent transfers of officials and political interference will be done away with," he added.
The theme of lacking standards in the implementation of works continued in the chief minister's remarks through the day.
Inaugurating slew of development works at Rajarajeshwari Nagar assembly constituency, Yeddyurappa said, "There are about 15,000 development works, worth Rs4,000 crore, going on in the city alone. A monitoring cell will soon be set up to ensure quality of ongoing projects."
"The Bangalore Development Authority has taken up 1,554 development works estimated to cost Rs 623 crore. While 950 works have already been completed, about 125 works have now been taken up at Rajarajeshwari Nagar constituency itself," he said