Miffed over the delay in completion of projects, water resources minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lallan Singh has come up with an idea to keep tab on his field officials.

The minister on Wednesday said most of the engineers do not work in their respective headquarters and they get engaged in other tasks at the cost of delaying the projects meant for the people and state.

"Many projects of our department are pending. There are several problems such as land acquisition. What pinches me most is the fact that our engineers are not on the job and they are barely present in their respective headquarters. From now, the engineers are directed to use the landline (fixed) phones while making calls to the headquarters so that their presence in their respective headquarters could be confirmed. It applies to executive engineers, assistance engineers, superintending engineers and engineers-in-chief," said Lallan.

Again, the department would use global positioning system in mobile phones to track the location of engineers out in the field. "The engineers will also have to make field visits and for that we will provide cellphones with GPS so that we can track them. We would monitor from Patna. In case, the engineers need leave, they have to inform their immediate boss," the minister said.