Mudassir Kuloo
Srinagar, Feb 17: Jammu and Kashmir government has directed departments to geo-tag all the developmental projects to ensure transparency and real-time monitoring of the works being undertaken in the Union Territory.
Official documents accessed by The Kashmir Monitor, reveal that Principal Secretary Finance Department Arun Kumar Mehta has directed departments to ensure geo-tagging of all the projects being implemented by Jammu and Kashmir infrastructure Development Finance Corporation (JKIDFC).
“With a view to ensure effective real-time monitoring of the projects being implemented by the JKIDFC, a geo-tagging facility has been created in the JKIMS portal,” the documents read.
All the nodal officers, as per the documents, shall have to take photographs either online or offline and upload those on the JKIMS portal. The photographs which will generate date stamp and location shall only be entertained with the invoices being generated by the nodal officers.
“All the nodal officers shall have to make certain that no invoices are generated without ensuring that the photographs taken either in online mode or offline mode are uploaded on the JKIMS portal with date stamp and automatically generated location stamp,” read the documents.
As per the directive, the departments working to complete the languishing projects shall not forward the invoices without ensuring that the photographs are uploaded in the manner prescribed to get real-time picture of the work done at the time of generating invoices.
For the last one year, JKIDFC has approved funding for 5000 languishing projects.
An official of Finance Department said Lieutenant Governor has issued directives that all developmental works shall be properly monitored. “Government has already initiated a probe into developmental works that were started without administrative approval,” he said.
Similarly, departments have also been told to seek prior approval from the Finance and Planning Department before starting any development works.
“Every authority designated with the powers of procuring goods and hiring services in public interest has the responsibility and accountability. There has to be economy, efficiency, fairness, transparency, quality and amount of money while purchasing goods,” reads another order of Finance Department said.
