NEW DELHI: A parliamentary committee has pulled up the Ministry of Railways for failing to provide any completion timeline for nearly 3000 rail bridges sanctioned at a cost of Rs 3328 crores since 2015 and has asked the Railway Board to have strict monitoring of all projects and fix responsibility for unreasonable and unexplained delays.
The action taken by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report on Maintenance of Bridges in Indian Railways tabled in both houses of parliament Tuesday said that the submission by the ministry is conspicuously silent on the issue of fixing accountability against the officers of the Indian Railways for procuring equipment at exorbitant rates as the same are lying underutilized.
Asking the ministry to put in place a monitoring system that would ensure timely completing of the projects, the committee recommended the monitoring committees at railway board, every zonal railways level and there should be strict monitoring of all the progress to ensure their timely completion.
Noting with regret that the bridge management system is yet to be commissioned even after a lapse of 11 years, the committee expressed deep dissatisfaction over the failure of the ministry to expedite the work. The Committee headed by Congress MP Mallikarjun Kharge told the ministry to address the matter seriously and take all necessary effective measures to ensure that the system is commissioned without further delay.