From Laggard to Leader; J&K witnesses completion of 65000 projects in 3 years

SRINAGAR : Reflecting exponential rise in completion of development works and establishing itself as leader from laggard in the world of progress and prosperity, Jammu and Kashmir has completed over 60,000 development projects in the past three years.

According to official document, 66,724 development projects have been completed in the Union Territory from 2019 to January 2022.

The break up details stated that 9229 projects have been completed during 2018-19, 12637 in 2019-20, 21943 during 2020-21 exhibiting a steep increase as compared to previous years’ achievements while 22975 works have been completed during the financial year 2021-22, till January 2022.

The records added that the “financial reforms and interventions” initiated by the Centre have facilitated completion of such a long list of development projects within the set timelines in the Union Territory.

“Authorization of projects and resources allocation is made through Budget Estimation, Allocation and Monitoring System (BEAMS), which is a real-time and paperless system. Through these interventions, the Union Territory has witnessed an unprecedented rise in completion of development works and projects in three years,” the document reads further.

Similarly, implementation of transformative reforms such as BEAMS which enables online budgetary process and timely release of funds against approved works, online submission of bills through J&K PaySys, Mandatory Administrative Approvals, Technical Sanctions and e-Tendering, digital payments, GFR, GeM and related measures have paced up the development works and brought J&K at par with any other progressive state in the country.

Apart from prioritizing newly sanctioned works, the administration has also focused on languishing projects.

During a review meeting of the Jammu & Kashmir Infrastructure Development Finance Corporation (JKIDFC), it was revealed that a total of 2357 projects have been approved in HPCs for funding under JKIDFC for an amount of Rs. 7110.78 crore, of which, 1239 projects for an amount of Rs 1748.65 crore have been completed.

It was also informed by the officials of JKIDFC that till date disbursement amounting Rs 2270.08 crore with 4637 payments for 1923 projects has been was made out of total 2500 crore loan lifted from different financial Institutions and Nationalized Banks.

JKIDFC has achieved tremendous transparency with incorporation of online payment tracking mechanism, tender details/allotment information and geo-tagging of all the projects approved for funding under the languishing scheme of JKIDFC that in itself is a unique model across the country, maintained an official spokesperson.

The J&K administration linked every project approved under JKIDFC with Google Earth for real time monitoring which facilitated public viewing on the official website of JKIDFC. It was stated that these measures had been taken to ensure the quality and timely completion of all these infrastructural projects languishing in the UT for a long time, he added.

The official figures revealed that 1193 projects worth Rs 1984 crore have been completed including five projects which had been lying incomplete for more than past 20 years, 15 projects for more than 15 years, and 165 projects for more than 10 years under the languishing projects programme.