Nitish: Crusade

Patna, Oct. 28: The state government is mulling steps to plug all possible loopholes that may lead to corruption at the implementation stage in the newly launched chief minister’s area development scheme.

The scheme was launched in place of the legislators’ local area development scheme to check corruption in utilisation of funds meant for development.

“A suggestion was recently floated that tasks of lesser value (less than Rs 10 lakh) should be awarded on nomination basis to expedite the process of awarding work. The planning and development department, however, rejected the proposal on the ground that there should be no scope for discretion in allotting works, as it may breed corruption,” a senior state government official told The Telegraph under cover of anonymity.

Curbing corruption is one of the biggest challenges confronting chief minister Nitish Kumar and he has promised to take hard steps to that end.

The planning and development department is the nodal department for implementation of the work to be taken up under the new scheme.

Similarly, the department has also rejected a proposal that spoke of doing away with the process of e-tendering for projects of lesser value. “The government stands for complete transparency in implementation of these schemes and e-tendering is one of the tools on this front,” said the official.

Steps are also being taken to ensure complete transparency in the functioning of the local area engineering organisation, which would be responsible for implementation of projects taken up under the new schemes.

“The planning and development department is likely to go for a software which would allow the contractors who would be awarded works under this scheme to submit bills online. The purpose of this proposed move is to keep tabs on the bill clearance system as people generally complain that undue favours are sought for clearing bills,” said the official. He added that the online submission of bills would nullify this possibility, as the officer concerned would have to give an explanation in case of delay in clearing a bill submitted by the contractor concerned.

A sum of Rs 2 crore is likely to be spent in procuring the special software, the use of which would allow online submission of bills.

The local area engineering organisation would also have to upload the scheme details on the website which would be specially created to help people form an idea about the schemes which would be taken up in a given year under the new scheme.

The department, to keep tabs on contractors, plans to introduce a system under which the contractors would have to submit periodical reports with the local area engineering organisation and also a photograph of the project site to substantiate the report content. This, in turn, would be uploaded on the website.

“Putting in place a new system would take time, but in the long run, it would be beneficial. Institutionalisation of the system would help plug all possible loopholes which may lead to corrupt practices.

Apart from the proposed system, the new scheme has many inbuilt provisions that aim to address the drawbacks which came to notice during implementation of the now-scrapped legislators’ local area development scheme.

The new plan would function in a more democratic manner. Selection of projects would be done on the basis of recommendations made by a district committee chaired by the in-charge minister of the district.