Projects progress not up to the mark: PMO
KATHMANDU, MAY 10 -
Almost all mega and medium-sized infrastructure projects touted as National Pride Projects (NPPs) are not making the desired level of progress, concluded the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) on Wednesday.
A four-hour meeting chaired by Chief Secretary Madhav Ghimire and attended by secretaries of the PMO and other line ministries reviewed the progress of these projects and took note the status of implementation.
Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai had listed around a dozen of infrastructure projects as ‘national pride’ in the Immediate Action Plan (IAP) unveiled in the last week of January. “We found problems and glitches in every project during the review,” said PMO Secretary Lila Mani Poudel.
The report card of the Melamchi Water Supply Project is among the worst, said a PMO official. “In Melamchi’s case, the poor performance of the contractor is making the progress sluggish and the land acquisition process is also not making good headway,” said Poudel.
The Upper Tamakoshi Hydroelectricity Project (UTHEP) is also facing serious management crisis which has hampered the preparation of the detailed project report (DPR). The UTHEP board meeting has not taken place since February 23. The Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) recently appointed Sunil Kumar Dhungel as the project director, but the board is yet to approve the decision.
The parliamentary Public Accounts Committee on Tuesday directed the chairman of the UTHEP board to convene the meeting within seven days and expedite the project as per the planned schedule. Expected to be completed by March 2015, work on UTHEP, one of the country’s most prioritised projects, has been obstructed time and again due to several factors.
The government, in the action plan, had said it would invite international investors to develop the Kathmandu-Tarai Fast Track, a second international airport and the East-West Electric Train under the Build-Own-Operate-Transfer (BOOT) model. However, not much progress has been achieved on this front. The East-West Electric Railway Project has been facing a severe resource crunch.
The action plan’s target of completing the track opening of the Kathmandu Tarai Fast Track and Mid-Hill Highway within this fiscal year looks almost impossible as both the projects are running behind the schedule.
The Nepal Army (NA) has been carrying out the track opening work of the much talked-about Fast-Track project for the last two years and has so far completed opening 40 km track out of 76 km. A parliamentary sub-committee formed to probe alleged irregularities in the track opening has expressed satisfaction about the output against cost, but questioned non-transparency.
Sikta Irrigation Project is the one which is making satisfactory progress, according to the PMO.
As far as the 750-MW West Seti Hydro Project is concerned, not much headway has been made after the government signed the memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the China Three Gorges International. The Energy Ministry and Investment Board are at loggerheads over the project even after the Prime Minister instructed the ministry to hand over the project to the board.
Almost all projects are suffering from the unavailability of petroleum, poor performance of contractors, lack of resources and
management crisis. “Our conclusion is that
we might not have that efficiency required to execute large and medium-sized projects. Our
mechanisms might have serious shortfall of expertise,” said a secretary taking part at the meeting. “Given the sluggish pace of execution, almost all these projects will not meet deadline.”
The PMO will issue directives to the line ministers to expedite project work to meet the set target.
“The PMO will instruct the executing agencies, line ministries and the Ministry of Finance to inject necessary budget to the cash-strapped projects, prioritise land acquisition, improve managerial capability of contractors and enhance the overall execution skills of the projects,” said the secretary.
Source: The Kathmandu Post
