| Sidhra Golf Course, several other projects san mandatory administrative approval | | | Avinash Azad
jammu, Feb 2: Poor administrative and technical supervision has caused inordinate delay in completion of many a developmental projects in Jammu and Kashmir, resulting in gross public inconvenience and unwarranted cost escalation. Sidhra Golf Course is one of such projects which has remained incomplete even after the lapse of five years due to lackadaisical attitude of the executing agency.
Sources in the Government divulge that the hyped project does not even have the administrative approval. Without mandatory approval, Sidhra Golf Course was taken up at an estimated cost of Rs 41 crore in September 2007. Sources told Early Times that every project costing Rs 5 crore or above needs approval from the Planning Department, financial concurrence from the Finance Department and finally the State Cabinet approval.
"The administrative approval is necessary for a project as it binds executing agency to complete it in a stipulated time-frame failing which the executing agency is liable to be subjected to disciplinary action. But in the absence of administrative approval, no time-frame was set for completion of these projects which led to huge cost escalation, causing enormous loss to State exchequer" sources added.
Sources further claimed that the project, in view of cost, required approval from the State Cabinet. "In case of Golf course, no rules were followed by the Government and it is being assumed that the administrative approval was deliberately not sought by the concerned executing agencies," sources said and asserted that there were more works (each costing Rs 5 crore or above) going on across the State without administration approval.
Recently, the State Government has set March, 2013 deadline for the completion of the second phase of 9 hole Sidhra Golf Course. "The first phase of Sidhra Golf Course was completed and commissioned during last fiscal, while as the work on second phase is going on against the total estimated cost of Rs 37.39 crore, he said.
However, declining delay in the Sidhra Golf Course, Director Tourism, Jammu Robin Singh Mehta, said that the Golf Course would be ready to play after June. But he could not give satisfactory answer, being asked whether the project had the administrative approval. |
|
