Jammu Tawi, May 20: In a significant move to ensure transparency and accountability, the Jammu & Kashmir government has conducted physical verification of 7646 development projects during the last financial year.
These details have been revealed in the annual report of the Finance department for 2020-21, which was released by J&K's Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha on Wednesday.
According to the report, a copy of which is in possession of The Precious Kashmir, the government has made 100 % physical verification of the projects compulsory to ensure accountability. “This is the first time in J&K that 100% physical verification has been made compulsory. An institutional setup has been created in each district for ensuring 100 per cent physical verification of all the on-going and completed projects,” reads the report, a copy of which is in possession of news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO).
Out of 10500 projects completed during 2019-20, 6561 projects have been physically verified by the regional Director of Economics and Statistics, the report reveals.
“In addition to this, 1085 projects (both completed / under execution) of the year 2020-21 were also physically verified by the team of officers constituted for the purpose,” it reads.
The report claims that 100 percent physical verification of the projects has created an immense sense of accountability.
It is worthwhile to mention that the Finance department in 2019 had directed the project monitoring/ appraisal and concurrent evaluation division of the Planning, Development and Monitoring department to get the projects/works monitored/physically verified through the district statistical and evaluation officers and statistical staff posted in districts of J&K.
It had also directed that major discrepancies noticed during the physical verification shall be brought into notice of the Finance department for district-sector as well as state-sector projects immediately and follow-up action shall be initiated in a time-bound manner.
It had also asked the officers to obtain comments of locals during physical verification of projects.
