Hyder Ali
Early Times Report
Srinagar, Apr 18: Rome was not built in a day, goes the popular maxim. But Minister for Public Works, Abdul Rehman Veeri thinks otherwise. On Sunday he warned of stern action against the engineers if they fail to prepare 500 Detailed Project Report(DPR)s within a week, while his diktat has drawn severe criticism with experts terming it a crude joke with the official machinery.
Chairing his maiden meeting with the Jammu and Kashmir Project Constructions Corporation officials in Jammu on April 18, Veeri directed the MD JKPCC to get the DPR's ready by next weekend or face action. Officials said it is for the first time in the history of Jammu and Kashmir that some minister has issued such "irrational diktat".
Veeri's directive is not any hearsay but what the official handout from the Information Department confirms. "Asking Director, JKPCC, Dileep Thusu and his team to prepare DPRs for 500 bridges within one week, the Minister said a separate team should be constituted for DPRs preparations," the handout said.
"While reiterating the need to strictly adhere to their deadlines, the Minister cautioned the JKPCC engineers that failure in meeting their deadlines would not be acceptable, and serious note would be taken against the errant engineers," the handout said.
However, as the handout made it to the newspapers this morning, a large chunk of engineers shared it online terming the directive "ridiculous and mockery of the administrative affairs." "This should easily qualify for a world record. Prepare DPR for 500 bridges in one week. 100 DPRs per day. Could not get any faster," a prominent engineer wrote on his Facebook wall while sharing the news story.
Another expert, Vikas Goyal, responded saying: "People always forget that a healthy baby is born in 9 months time and that too with lot of precautions and protocols to follow. Any attempt to cut short the time may affect the baby."
Iftikhar Drabu, a prominent technocrat who has worked on mega developmental projects in India and China, termed the directive ridiculous. "Preparing DPR is unlike making Chappaties. It's a highly technical job, which is to be done meticulously keeping in view utmost technicalities," said Drabu.
"It will take months… Soil investigation is to be done to know the bearing capacity, hydraulic analysis is to be done, costing is to be done and then a lot more including environmental factors are to be considered while a futuristic look is to be made where liaison with other departments is needed," the technocrat told Early Times.
"Moreover each DPR is to be done individually." "In fact," he said "the JKPCC has no competence at all to prepare the DPRs."
A top JKPCC official, on the other hand, linked the minister's directive with infighting within the Peoples Democratic Party. Even though the PDP has retained the PWD ministry, the minister was changed in the second innings.
"Basically what we inferred from the meeting yesterday is that he (Veeri) wants to show his predecessor as having performed very poorly. He wants to prove his predecessor wrong," the official privy to the meeting said. Pleading his point the official said, the minister pretended that the central government was not getting DPRs in time and thus funding vis-vis development remains affected in state since last year.
This particular point finds mention in the official handout. "Taking a strong note for not preparing early Draft Project Reports (DPRs) that need to be sent to Centre for getting grant under Central Roads Fund (CRF) scheme, Veeri said that even centre has complained that our DPRs do not come to them regularly," the handout said.
But a senior official in the PWD said minister's viewpoint was far from reality. "Basically last year the PWD prepared some of the best DPRs including some innovative ones whereby roads can be made in concrete and thus there will be no wear and tear," the official posted in Civil Secretariat said.
The official said it was virtually impossible to prepare 500 DPRs in week. "Humanly and logically it's impossible unless the Minister Sahib gives us some magic want," the official quipped.
Despite repeated attempts Veeri could not be contacted for comments. |
