Need for makeover in CPWD's working, public image: Naidu

Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu today reached out to all 30,000 employees of the CPWD, sharing his concerns over its functioning and asked the state-run construction major to work towards bringing about a change in the public image of the organisation.
For the first time in the history of the 160-year-old institution, Naidu addressed all its employees at 33 locations in the country through video-conferencing and live web streaming.
He insisted that Central Public Works Department (CPWD) needs to achieve a makeover in its working and public perception through timely completion of projects, zero tolerance to corruption, transparency and accountability.

During the hour-long interaction, Naidu directed the top brass and all the employees of CPWD to ensure that payments are made from April, 2015 to contractors only after social and third-party audit of works costing more than Rs 5 crore, and only online payments by all the 274 divisions from April 2015.
He directed for introduction of bio-metric attendance markers in all the circles and field units by December 2015 and also sought the presence of all project managers at the site of work.
Naidu also sought clearance of all cases of pending promotions by February this year.

The minister noted that as a part of ongoing efforts to streamline functioning of CPWD all relevant information about 7,000 projects costing over Rs 30,000 crore has been placed in public domain.

He assured the employees that CPWD and the ministry would do the needful to create better working conditions of its employees.
Saying them that he will interact with all of them once in three months, Naidu asked them to rise to the occasion collectively and assured them there would not be any interference in their working.
He interacted with senior officers and others from 15 locations seeking their views on working conditions, areas of improvement required, progress of various works, changed brought about during the last eight months, among others.
Urban Development Secretary Shankar Aggarwal, CPWD DG B B Bhatia and other senior officials participated in the interactive session.