20 months after bureaucratic initiation, no follow-up by govt

USD 500 Mil dev project

MIR FARHAT

SRINAGAR: While besides facing the menace of terrorism, the state is struggling to keep up on developmental front, however, even that did no good for the PDP-BJP government which failed to pursue a million dollar infrastructure development programme with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) even though at the bureaucratic level all formalities were completed a year ago.
As the things came to fore, the Planning and Development Department had in 2016 proposed to take up new J&K Infrastructure Development Programme (JKIDP) amounting to USD 500 million to address the infrastructure gaps in certain key sector areas such as water supply, sewerage, drainage, urban transport, heritage conservation and beautification of priority towns.
Then Financial Commissioner had even written to centre for approval of the program, however, after 20 months, the state government had not followed up the proposal even once.
With voices of discontentment rising against this carefree attitude of state government, some officials have also asserted while talking to The News Now that the senior ministers have shown no eagerness to pursue the matter, even as Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti was shown a presentation on the same two months ago, in September.
As things unfolded, Present Chief Secretary, B B Vyas, who was then Financial Commissioner, Planning and Development Department, had written a letter No. PD/ERA/2016/53, dated 26 March 2016-a copy of which lies with The News Now- to Joint Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) Ministry of Finance for request for approval of Project Jammu and Kashmir Infrastructure Development Programme (JKIDP) for financing on External Aided projects (EAP) pattern.
Vyas had pointed out that the State has availed a meagre 0.01 % of multilateral funding thus far and proposes to avail more funds for addressing the developmental issues in the state.
"The state continues to face the challenge of the huge infrastructural development deficit, the challenge of taking up new development initiatives assumes greater emphasis considering the fact that the ongoing projects under the ADB funding are nearing completion by 2016," Vyas had pointed out in the letter.
He had said that the state has in its data bank readily available schemes together with techno-economic feasibility reports and the likely requirement of resources to meet the immediate infrastructure gaps within the priority sectors areas will be approximately US $550 million.
"It is requested that the proposal of Government of Jammu & Kashmir for approval of a new project - JKIDP for US$550 million may kindly be considered positively and on an immediate basis," he had written in the letter.
"It will be appropriate if further assistance for JKIDP is also received from ADB with whom a strong working relationship stand established, considering that the State has received most of the external aid assistance through ADB and that JKMPIR and JKUSDIP were conceived and implemented under ADB funding," he had said.
He had written that the State Government, however, shall remain open to funding arrangement with the other agencies/lending institutions such as BRICS, JICA, World Bank etc and the Government of J&K proposes to have Loan from funding agency for an amount equal to US$500 million {90% Loan, 10% special assistance from GoI).
Official sources said that despite the planning department having taken up the matter with DEA, at the government or ministerial level the proposal was not followed up.
He said that DEA, nodal agency for taking up projects of multi-lateral funding, has written to ADB for the loan for JKIDP.
"Had the chief minister or her finance minister taken up the matter with the DEA and ADB in New Delhi, the funds would have been released and the state would have seen further development of mega infrastructures," an official told The News Now, but did not want to be identified with his name.
The official said that the chief minister must take up the matter with the DEA and ABD.
All the ongoing ADB assisted mega-projects in the State are being implemented through J&K Economic Reconstruction Agency (JKERA) and the ADB has till now sanctioned multi-sector Project for Infrastructure Rehabilitation (MPIR) ADB Loan and Jammu & Kashmir Urban Sector Development Investment Programme (JKUSDIP) Multi Tranche Financing Facility.
A senior offical in ERA told The News Now that the JKIDP is under preparation by ERA from last one year.
Recently, in Governing Body meeting of ERA, chaired by Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, on September 18, a presentation was shown to CM by ERA officials about the projects proposed under JKIDP, the official said.
"There is no eagerness in the government to pursue the matter," the offical said, adding that earlier chief ministers would take up the development proposals with GoI and ADB.
"If the CM does not take it up with ABD, JKIDP projects will get delayed for years," he said.