Boosting infra development

19/09/2018

With a view to providing fillip to the developmental activities across the State, the State Administrative Council (SAC) which met few days back under the chairmanship of the Governor, Satya Pal Malik approved an amount of Rs 8000 crores for completing all languishing projects in the State. For this purpose, the SAC approved the establishment of a new infrastructure company, the Jammu and Kashmir Infrastructure Development Finance Corporation (JKIDFC). The JKIDFC has been authorized to raise a loan not exceeding Rs 8000 crores from various financial Institutions including State/ Nationalized Banks for completion of these unfunded, languishing projects. A persistent difficulty encountered in the development process has been the large number of languishing and unfunded projects. These developmental projects which are at different stages of execution are either inadequately funded or have been left incomplete due to one or the other reason. Some of them have been languishing for over 5 years resulting not only in blocking of funds spent on them but also in cost escalation and time overruns. The SAC took note of the fact that the completion of these projects in a business as usual manner would take over a decade. Recognizing the need of the citizens for essential infrastructure, it decided to approve a special scheme that would enable nearly Rs 8000 crores of developmental funds to be made available in one go, to be used not only for completion of unfunded/languishing infrastructural projects in the State but also for any other new infrastructure projects, which was a priority for the State.
In order to ensure proper and fool proof operationalization of the scheme and selection, authorization, monitoring and regulation of projects under it, the SAC also approved the constitution of a High-Powered Committee (HPC) comprising Administrative Secretaries of Finance, Planning, PWD and PHE besides the concerned Secretary of the department whose projects were being considered. It also directed that a stringent set of guidelines be put in place to ensure that only the deserving projects and those which are essential from public standpoint be funded under this scheme. The process would include the accord of Administrative approval and all relevant Technical sanctions before a project could be considered for sanction under the scheme besides strict adherence to a totally transparent and competitive, e-tendering process. The SAC further ordered that all projects would have to be completed strictly within the specified timelines and a pre-agreed penalty shall be imposed on the executing agency in case of any delay or slippage. Meanwhile, the SAC decided to open 40 new degree colleges in a phased manner across the State, including the 26 degree colleges already sanctioned. While acknowledging the need for opening up of more colleges in un-served areas to provide access to hitherto deprived sections of the society and increasing the enrolment at college level which is the need of the hour.

Photo Gallery

BSE Sensex

NSE Nifty