Defence Ministry approves delegation of powers to BRO

The Ministry of Defence has decided to delegate administrative and financial powers to the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) to avoid delays on account of references between the Chief Engineer, HQ DGBR and the Ministry.

The Defence Ministry intends to bring transformational changes in the organisation in order to improve the pace of execution of works and to achieve desired outcomes according to the requirement of the armed forces.

Enhancing the powers at all levels in the BRO, the Ministry of Defence has now approved that for both departmental and contractual mode of execution, a chief engineer of the BRO can accord administrative approval up to Rs. 50 crore, ADGBR up to Rs. 75 crore and DGBR up to Rs. 100 crore.

Earlier, a chief engineer in the BRO had the power to accept execution of contracts only up to Rs. 10 crore, ADGBR had powers up to Rs. 20 crore, beyond which all tenders had to be sent to DGBR.

But now with the intent to speed up the tendering process, the Ministry of Defence has enhanced the powers of chief engineer for acceptance of bids with cost of contract up to Rs. 100 crore and that of ADGBR for cost of contract up to Rs. 300 crore.

The Ministry of Defence has approved policy guidelines based on which the BRO may engage big construction companies for taking up road projects on a turnkey basis.

It is expected that with delegation of powers by the Ministry of Defence to the BRO, the pace of road construction in border areas would improve and the BRO would be able to complete ongoing and new projects in compressed timelines.

Functioning under the control of the Ministry of Defence since 2015, the BRO is engaged in road construction to provide connectivity to difficult and inaccessible regions in the border areas of the country.