Infrastructural woes plague development projects

28 June 2012

biswabrata goswami
MIDNAPORE, 28 JUNE: At a time when the chief minister, Miss Mamata banerjee, has made it clear that the proper implementation of various development projects in the Junglemahal should be the top priority of the district administrative officials, lack of proper infrastructure is spoiling such projects including school upgrade here.
According to the plans,  82 Madhyamik schools have already been upgraded in the Jhargram sub-division, but the entire process was done without following the general rules of school upgrade.  The students have refused to get admitted in the newly upgraded schools, and instead chose to seek admission in the existing Higher Secondary schools in the area. The school upgrade was done without verifying the necessity and requirements.
The state planning and development department has already proposed to hand over the responsibility of monitoring the development projects in the area to the ill-equipped paschimanchal unnayan affairs (PUA) department, a senior administrative officer said. A few months ago the department was allotted a sum of Rs 183 crore for the execution of the the development projects but the officials didn't know how to to utilise the funds. Finally, the planning department asked departments like PWD, forest irrigation, PHE, to submit schemes so that the PUA department can allot the required funds. The PUA could not spend Rs 61 crore allotted to it in the previous fiscal due to lack of infrastructure and manpower. The department will soon recruit 35 engineers, a full-time CEO and six WBCS officers in the parishad to monitor development the projects.