NEW DELHI: Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal has approved a PWD proposal to delegate financial powers to the department’s engineering officers. This will be a major boost for around 170 stalled beautification projects in the city. Major projects related to road and school constructions, repair of flyovers etc have already crossed their deadlines due to delay in fund release.
According to the approved proposal, the engineer-in-chief, who did not have financial powers earlier, can now take a decision on works that cost between Rs 4 and Rs 5 crore. A principal chief engineer can execute works that cost between Rs 2 and Rs 4 crore, while a superintendent engineer can do the same for works costing between Rs 30 lakh and Rs 1 crore.
Earlier, the PWD engineers had no financial powers. The chief engineer and secretary had powers to allocate funds only related to maintenance of roads, installation of road signs etc. “Almost 23 big projects, with a deadline of four-six months, were halted due to no fund clearance,” said a PWD official said.
“Projects such as Streetscaping, beautification of roads, remedial measures of noise and vibration at flyovers etc were sanctioned between 2013 and 2016. However, these projects failed to meet their deadline due to either lack of funds or other clearance-related issues. Now, after the approval of the PWD proposal, works are expected to be completed by January,” the official added.