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Call to strengthen project monitoring body

By Staff reporter

GUWAHATI, Aug 2 � The State Government should strengthen the Planning and Development (P&D) Department�s division for evaluation and monitoring of the projects, schemes and programmes. This is the observation made by Nripen Mahanta, a retired chief of Division of the State P&D Department.

Talking to this newspaper, he said that the main functions of the division are to evaluate and monitor the different projects, schemes and programmes being implemented by the different heads of the departments of the State Government.

Its main function is to recommend corrective measures over the findings of the evaluation study or physical monitoring of the projects, etc.

This division was set up in the early 1950s at the instance of the Planning Commission of India. There is also a state evaluation committee headed by the Chief Minister to issue directives to rectify the flaws in implementation of such projects, plans and programmes as per the recommendation of the above division.

So, in this respect, it is expected that the government should strengthen this important mechanism and a methodology should be adopted for the purpose in the true sense of the term, Mahanta said.

In this respect, he referred to the observations made by public activist Deven Dutta on the issue of developmental activities. Dutta advised Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi and PWD Minister Ajanta Neog to visit different places, specially interior areas of the State, to see for themselves the pathetic condition of the roads and bridges.

Prof Dutta alleged that even many of the newly repaired and newly constructed roads and bridges bore tell tell signs of gross signs of compromise on quality. The entire scenario is utterly depressing and strongly indicative of large scale corruption with tacit approval of the bureaucratic and political bigwigs of the PWD, alleged Dutta.

Mahanta said that the public activist has pointed out the shortcomings in the execution of the developmental schemes in the right manner.

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