Kerala Tourism is trying a new experiment for the overall monitoring, timely and speedy completion of tourism projects executed with the budgetary support from the State and Centre.
The new mechanism is also aimed at preventing cost escalation on account of dragging of the work and to ensure quality. Official sources said the department was not happy with agencies such as KITCO and SIDCO that were executing the works.
The Centre’s insistence on repaying the sanctioned funds for key tourism projects that were not completed in the stipulated period is also a trigger for the move.
The Tourism Department which does not have an engineering wing of its own has been depending on persons provided by LBS to monitor the projects. The department executes projects worth Rs. 250 crore a year and there are more than 325 tourism projects ‘live’ across the State.
Under the new mechanism, a monitoring cell with a project engineer in each district and a control unit at Park View, the headquarters of Kerala Tourism, to monitor the projects has been set up. The control unit has a nodal officer and two senior engineers.
The staff are on contract with a pay band of Rs. 25,000 for engineers to Rs. 45,000 for nodal officer.
The government has given the nod for the proposal after a working group of the Tourism Department approved the proposal. A sum of Rs. 75 lakh had been sanctioned towards the salary and travelling allowance of the staff posted for 12 months and for purchase of computers.
But, apprehensions have been raised over the posting of retired hands as nodal officers in the monitoring cell instead of roping in youngsters with experience and civil engineering background.
Tenders
Moves are also on to invite tenders and to prepare a panel of contractors to whom works will be awarded. Official sources say this will lead to corruption between those in the monitoring cell and the contractors who are awarded the works. The planning wing of the department will have to answer the queries as others on contract will have left when the work is completed.
Officials have also demanded an audit of the works that are lying incomplete in the tourist destinations and the sanctioned funds lying with the KITCO and various district tourism promotion councils.
