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| No website for crorepati PMGSY scheme in J&K | | | Early Times Report
srinagar, May 30: Hundreds of crores are spent on road projects annually in Jammu and Kashmir under the Pradhan Mantri Gramin Sadak Yojna (PMGSY), but there is no website for the scheme in the state.
In an RTI reply, PMGSY Executive Engineer for Budgam has accepted that the Chief Engineer's office in Kashmir has no website.
Details available with Early Times reveal that an information seeker namely Syed Farhat, a resident of Surasyar, Chadoora had filed an RTI application in the office of PMGSY Chief Engineer Kashmir last month to get some information about a road project from Chadoora to Branwar.
Farhat alleges that substandard material is being used in the road project as the retaining walls and drains have already developed cracks. In addition to it Farhat wanted to know implementation of section 4 of J&K RTI Act 2009 wherein all government offices are supposed to have a well maintained official website so as to upload various public information including DPRs of projects and other details of works being taken up by engineering departments.
As the DPR of the Chadoora Surasyar-Branwar road was not available anywhere, Farhat sought same under RTI and also the details of PMGSY's official website in Kashmir and method and manner of making pro-active disclosure of information under section 4 of State RTI law.
To this, PIO/ Executive Engineer PMGSY Budgam replied: "Chief Engineer PMGSY Kashmir is not having any official website. Technical Officer to Chief Engineer is the public information officer (PIO) in the office of Chief Engineer Kashmir who can disclose information under JK RTI Act 2009" .
It is pertinent to mention that many of the official websites in J&K are either not updated or are not at all working. Early Times had filed a series of reports in this regard in the past few months.
As reported already the office of Executive Engineer PMGSY Budgam, which is supposed to be located in Budgam district especially near district headquarters, is operating from Srinagar district and the reason is only personal comforts which the officials of this department want to have for themselves.
The officials of PMGSY Budgam do not want to travel to Budgam from Srinagar as most of the officials hail from Srinagar and that is the reason they have kept the office location at Bagh-e-Mehtab Srinagar. Sources also told Early Times that some engineers of PMGSY are running engineering consultancies and that is also a reason for keeping the Budgam office in Srinagar so that the Executive Engineer or any other officer running the consultancy doesn't have to travel all the way from Budgam to Srinagar on daily basis. Many locals in Khag, Beeru and Chadoora allege that engineers of PMGSY are not seen in the field as they are more interested in clerical work to get commission from contractors rather than remaining in the field to oversee the project work.
"Every year PMGSY executes works for hundreds of crores across J&K. To create a website hardly few thousand of rupees are required, but this is a deliberate attempt as the corrupt engineers and officials in PMGSY Kashmir and Jammu don't want to keep citizens informed about their projects and details of funds to be spend or already spent on various components of work. I appeal State Information Commission (SIC) to take this issue seriously as this is an open violation of section 4 of JK RTI Act 2009," said Syed Nasarullah, legal expert and trustee of J&K RTI Movement. |
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