Works Dept. In Limbo As Core Functions Outsourced

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Works Department despite having a pool of skilled manpower has recruited many of the core sectors to third parties or contractors which has resulted in inconsistent services in different locations, less control over the quality of work, delivery timelines, reduced opportunity for its employees to learn new skills and lowered their morale.

Impact of Outsourcing on Service Quality

The outsourcing process instead of cutting costs has resulted in crores of rupees of people’s money being siphoned off in a nexus between the top mandarins and the private parties.

It might be mentioned here that the recruitment for high-level posts in the Works Department is being done through the Odisha Public Services Commission for the wings of architecture, design, procurement, buildings, roads, bridges and other infrastructure.

But private consultants have been roped in for all these core sectors of the department allegedly with ulterior motives, despite the fact that the skilled personnel are paid high salaries along with TA, DA and other allowances.

The recruitment of private consultants is costing the State exchequer dearly. Crores of rupees are only spent on DPR preparation, procurement, testing of road quality, building and bridges. Works Department inefficiency.

Website and Database Maintenance Issues

However, to make matters worse, the Works Department website has not been updated for ages. Works Secretary Veer Vikram Yadav who has been in-charge of the department from August 2022 it seems is ignorant about it. Besides, the database of the employees recruited, their designation, responsibilities, the divisions they have been assigned to work is not being uploaded in the website. Information about of Engineer- in-Chief and the other senior officers and the wings they are working with are also not being provided. There is also no information about the who and who of design, road and buildings, procurement, architecture, quality monitoring wings which are core sectors.

Budget allocation for the year, annual plan maintenance, road buildings and bridges allocation have not been provided for the last five years. Information about ongoing projects is not been provided. Works Department inefficiency.

Administrative Irregularities and Poor Work Culture

Besides, the Minister and the Secretary, there is no information about other senior officers and their contact numbers etc. There is no information about the 58 work dept divisions, circle’s chief construction engineer and division ‘s superintendent engineers is not being provided for benefit of the public.   The organization given the website maintenance responsibility has totally failed, So, it is no surprise that some officers name who have superannuated two to three years ago are still mentioned!

To add to the woes, some Assistant Engineer, Assistant Executive Engineers, Executive Engineers, Superintendent Engineer in the department, Circle office have been posted for more than five to eight years. Due to this there is poor work culture, liability of division is being increased  and quality monitoring of every work is nil. Crores of rupees is being misutilised in officer-agency nexus. Deviation, escalation, false bills and manipulation has become a norm causing loss worth crores of rupees to State exchequer.

The intellectuals have demanded the State Government’s intervention to streamline the Works Department which plays a key role in the infrastructure development in the State.