Maharashtra government plans to rope in IT majors to monitor public projects

To stop leakages in the system and ensure stricter quality control, the state government is planning to involve information technology (IT) majors for monitoring its projects through evidence-based photography, said finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar.

Mungantiwar, who presented the Fadnavis-led government's first budget on Wednesday, said that faced with massive expenditure for construction of six new medical colleges, they were looking at options like public-private partnership (PPP), in a first such initiative.

"We are changing the direction. We will monitor the ongoing government works through evidence-based photography," said Mungantiwar, noting that this would help check corruption.

The evidence-based monitoring will cover major works undertaken by the state government. The progress on these projects will be photographed and regularly uploaded online, with details like when the tender was floated and work order issued, the name of the contractor and the progress of work done by him, and the various parts involved in the work which were completed (for instance, when the plinth for a building was laid).

"This will help us understand how much work has been done in the time scheduled, or if it is lagging behind," he added, stating that they were looking at options like hiring IT majors, including those who were already working with the state IT department for this. The state will set the ball rolling after the budget session concludes with the appointment being made in around five months' time. This will be a permanent structure.

In his budget speech, Mungantiwar had said that a separate control room will be established in the state administrative headquarters of Mantralaya for this monitoring.

"There are a lot of complaints regarding works done by contractors such as for roads. When the cement for the road is being mixed, the junior engineer is supposed to stand there and he gets a salary for this. However, this does not happen due to the nexus between the two. This leads to poor quality of work," said Mungantiwar, adding that the system planned by them would ensure stricter monitoring and better quality of works.

Stressing on the need for time-bound completion of projects, he also pointed to massive time overruns in projects.

"We spend quite a lot on our employees. (Hence) we will try to increase their output," said Mungantiwar, adding, "The complete capability of these officials was not used." Noting that there was no sound quality control on the use of funds allocated by the government, he said that while a common excuse to justify poor quality work was the overbearing workload, the reverse - quality where the number of works involved was less - did not hold true.

Mungantiwar said the state would need around Rs3,000 crore for establishing six new medical colleges in Maharashtra, and this would cost around Rs1,000 crore annually, which would be tough for the government to bear.

"We are examining if this can be done on PPP basis like in Madhya Pradesh. Some states have opted for a deferred payment model (where the contractor is paid installments over a period of time)," he said.

The medical colleges will come up at Nandurbar, Mumbai, Alibaug, Satara, Gondia, Baramati and Chandrapur and were announced by the erstwhile Congress-NCP-led state government.

Maharashtra has 14 government medical colleges: Mumbai and Thane have three and one respectively. The 43 government, civic, private, army, central colleges and deemed universities in Maharashtra have an intake capacity of 5,695 for MBBS. This includes 2,000 seats in the government, 460 in civic colleges and 1,625 in deemed universities.