With an objective of speeding up long-pending development works in the city and bring in transparency in the implementation of these projects, the Vijayapura City Corporation has decided to use software technology to meet the objective.
Commissioner Harsha Shetty has got specific software designed to address issues mainly in expediting projects and completing them in a time-bound manner.
The software, which is believed to be the first of its kind in any city corporations of the State, makes officials and contractors accountable for projects allowing the government to take action against them for any delay.
“The Vijayapura Municipality got upgraded to a Corporation in 2012. Since then, it has received around ₹ 260 crore for development projects, but unfortunately, 332 projects started in 2012 are still pending. Of the ₹ 260 crore, the corporation is yet to spend ₹ 120 crore. Owing to the delay in utilising the funds and the failure to ensure the completion of the project, the corporation is unable to get more funds from the government. To address this critical issue, I got this software designed which we would start using in a couple of days,” he said.
Explaining the salient features of the software, he told The Hindu that the engineer concerned would feed the information of a specific project from the date of preparing action plan and allotting the tender to the contractor. A schedule is fixed for the implementation and completion of the project.
If the project fails to meet the deadline, then it automatically generates notice — one for the engineer concerned and another for the contractor.
“This information helps us keep track of the status of the project, and take suitable action against the erring person,” he said.
Mr. Shetty said that for updating the project status, 18 laptops with Internet connectivity would be given to the officials concerned.
Stating that the officials will have to mention the reason for the delay in implementing the projects, he said that except in genuine cases, action could be initiated if the reasons are lame.
Hoping that the new initiative would help in speeding up projects and also getting more funds from the government, Mr. Shetty sought the cooperation of the elected representatives in its effective implementation.
