The tendering process for the projects to be executed in the current financial year in the city Corporation is expected to begin by next month.
This is a major improvement from the previous years, when the tendering of most projects began as late as January, with just two months remaining for the end of the financial year.
The Left Democratic Front government has maintained that from this year, it will not allow bunching of bills towards the end of the financial year and spendings will have to be evened out across the year.
Early take-off
To meet this, the project planning and implementation process has taken off quite early this year.
Currently, the vetting process of the projects is ongoing in the city Corporation. It is expected to be finished by this month-end. After the technical sanction of the projects, the tenders could be called.
Earlier this year, the State-level coordination committee had cleared the Corporation’s proposal for spreading out of responsibilities to the lower levels from this year on.
With this change, around 30 officials would now become implementing officers instead of just one such officer till last year.
The change has reduced the repeated movement of files all the way up and down the hierarchy. This will also lead to drastic improvement in fund utilisation and more efficiency in project implementation this year
“Earlier it was like a snake and ladder game. With the files moving up and down the hierarchy, and also including the time that it stays at each of the desks, there was much delay in every stage. The new changes will lead to less delays in the release of money after the work too,” said a Corporation official.
As per the new arrangement, only projects having more than ₹2 crore expense needs to be cleared by the Superintending Engineer. Till last year, all projects had to go right up to the Superintending Engineer.
Now, projects up to ₹15 lakh could be cleared by the Assistant Engineers (AE). Projects from ₹15 lakh to ₹50 lakh could be cleared by the Assistant Executive Engineers (AXE). Projects between ₹50 lakh and ₹2 crore could be cleared by the Executive Engineers (EE). The Corporation has 21 AEs, 5 AXEs and 3 Ees.
Last year, the fund utilisation of the Corporation was at a low of 27% at the end of the financial year.
