press trust of india
New Delhi, August 20: Concerned over inordinate delays in the construction of strategic roads along the India-China border, the defence ministry has delegated more administrative and financial powers to the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) for the speedy completion of the projects.
The decision to give additional powers to BRO came months after the Comptroller and Auditor General also took strong objection to the long delays by the BRO in constructing 61 strategically important roads, with a total length of 3,409km, under the India-China Border Roads (ICBRs) project.
The defence ministry said in a statement on Saturday it intended to bring transformational changes in the BRO to improve the pace of execution of work and to achieve the desired outcome according to the requirements of the army.
Besides conferring additional administrative powers to the BRO, the government has enhanced the delegation of financial powers of up to Rs 100 crore to the BRO Director General for procurement of both indigenous and imported construction machinery and equipment, the ministry said.
Earlier, the DG had powers of only up to Rs 7.5 crore for procurement of indigenous equipment and Rs 3 crore for procurement of imported equipment.
The defence ministry has also approved policy guidelines to allow the BRO to engage big construction companies for taking up road projects on a turnkey basis.
“The ministry of defence has decided to delegate administrative and financial powers to the BRO right up to the level of chief engineer and Task Force commander, so as to avoid delays on account of references between the chief engineer and director general of BRO and also between the director general and the ministry,” the statement said.
The decision to accord more powers to the BRO comes amid a face-off between the armies of India and China at Doklam in the India-Bhutan-China tri-junction.
Official sources said the Indian Army was unhappy over delays in the implementation of the India-China Border Roads and had requested the defence ministry to speed up the project, originally scheduled for completion in 2012.