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Minister for Urban Development and Parliamentary Affairs, Shri Ghulam Nabi Azad today assured the members of Consultative Committee attached to the Ministry of Urban Development that there is no move to privatise CPWD. A professional agency was appointed to conduct the process improvement study on CPWD so as to improve its work culture, quality of work, and reorient CPWD to topical and relevant concerns of construction industry. While appreciating the contribution of CPWD for its past record, Shri Azad said that CPWD’s present record should be better and the future needs to be the best. Shri Azad also said that the move to restructure CPWD is aimed at improving the efficiency, work culture, cutdown delays in project implementation and bring about better co-ordination among different wings of CPWD like civil, electrical, horticulture etc.
Members participating in the discussion observed that the maintenance work executed by CPWD is not upto the mark and this is affecting the image of CPWD which has been doing a good job in the area of construction. They also suggested that CPWD should focus on technology upgradation and reduce wastage of resources. Some members suggested that instead of spending huge amount on renovating repairing of old buildings, the government should examine the feasibility of demolishing old buildings and build newer ones in their places.
Reacting to the members, Shri Azad agreed that the maintenance work undertaken by CPWD needs lot of improvement and poor monitoring of the job assigned to the contractors is contributing to the erosion of the image of CPWD in the eyes of public. He advised CPWD to do more introspection to improve probity and create corruption free work culture and assured members that strict action is being taken against officials found guilty in vigilance cases.
In his opening remarks, Shri Azad explained to the members about various new initiatives taken by the ministry since the last meeting and said that National Urban Renewal Mission is likely to be approved shortly to provide reform linked central assistance for infrastructure development and provision of basic services. He also mentioned the finalisation of Regional Plan – 2021 for NCR, National Urban Transport Policy, Master Plan of Delhi and creation of an umbrella scheme for lump sum provision for the benefit of North Eastern Region and Sikkim.
Shri Azad also told the members that a draft project has been prepared for the purpose of construction of permanent houses for resettlement of Tsunami affected people of Andaman & Nicobar Islands. Referring to the good work done by CPWD in the recent past, Shri Azad said that the department has increased the workload from Rs. 2670 crore in 1999-2000 to 4211 crore in 2004-05. He also appreciated the efforts of CPWD in promoting rainwater harvesting in all new CPWD buildings and also the measures taken to build energy efficiency and eco-friendly buildings.
Among others who attended the meeting are Smt. Krishna Tirath, Shri Sajjan Kumar, Shri Swadesh Chakraborty, Smt. Tejaswini See.Ramesh, Shri V. Radhkrishnan, Shri Vijay Kumar Malhotra and Shri Madan Lal Sharma (Lok Sabha); Shri V. Narayansamy, Shri Prasanta Chatterjee, Shri G.K. Vasan and Shri Karnendu Bhattacharjee (Rajya Sabha)
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