Social audit of infra project mooted

Engineering institutes might be roped in for this

In order to bring transparency in the implementation of infrastructure projects in the state, the Punjab government has started preparations to initiate a social audit of all infrastructure projects.

A spokesperson of the state government on Wednesday said here during a brainstorming session, held under the chairmanship of Sarvesh Kaushal, chief secretary of Punjab, social audit should be conducted for various infrastructure projects being implemented by various departments such as the Public Works Department, irrigation, local government, housing and urban development and Mandi Board.

It was also suggested in the meeting that top engineering institutes in the state should be associated for the purpose. Six engineering colleges in the state, including Punjab Engineering College (PEC) and Thapar University, have already given their consent to carry out the techno-social audit of various ongoing and future infrastructure projects.

It was recommended that dedicated funds to the tune to 0.5 per cent of the total project cost should be earmarked to finance these technical institutes for conducting the social audit and for capacity building. It was also suggested at the meeting that administrative secretaries concerned of the state involved in the implementation of the infrastructure projects should randomly select 10 per cent of the total projects. These 10 per cent projects would be selected each from three slabs of project value - Rs 0-5 crore, Rs 5-10 and Rs 10-50 crore. It was also decided that for the projects with value of more than Rs 50 crore, the expert services of well-established public sector undertakings such as Engineers India Limited would be hired as project management consultants.