Maharashtra Govt. To Provide UID to Public Projects to Prevent Duplication of Work

Mumbai: In a bid to stop the duplicity of government works, the Maharashtra government on Thursday announced that it will provide Unique ID numbers to Public infrastructure projects similar to the Aadhaar number given to citizens. Maharashtra will be the first state to come up with such a Unique ID for public infrastructure projects.

The state government has constituted a four-member committee to study how mapping of the projects will be done. The development comes after the Rural Development Department (RDD), Forest Department, Public Works Department (PWD) and Tourism Department constructed toilet blocks adjacent to each other at pilgrimage places at Ratanwadi village of Akole tehsil in Ahmednagar district. Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis also instructed the state administration to start an e-cabinet-like e-office. A senior official said that all proposals of the cabinet will be shared through iPad or tablet.

Mr. Fadnavis on Thursday chaired a cabinet meeting. As per the statement issued by the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO), there are multiple departments which carried out similar kinds of the projects at the same places, resulting in loss of crores of rupees.

“The unique IDs will prevent duplication of development works, carried out by the multiple departments,” the official said.

A senior official, who was present in the cabinet meeting, said that the chief minister has given an example of the RDD, PWD, forest and tourism departments, which had built toilet blocks adjacent to each other in the Ahmednagar district. “Nashik Divisional Commissioner Praveen Gedam noticed this around a month ago and he informed the state government about it. Following this, it has been decided to give Unique IDs to projects. This will help in prevention of the duplication of works will be stopped,” the senior official said.

Apart from giving Unique ID, geo tagging will also be done on the public infrastructure project.

The CMO said that they have constituted a committee as per the instruction of the CM.

“Rajgopal Devra, additional chief secretary, planning department, Saurabh Vijay, principal secretary of finance department (expenditure), Eknath Dawle, principal secretary of RDD, and Pravin Gedam will be members of the committee. The committee will submit its report to the cabinet,” it said.

After the cabinet meeting, the CM said, “Apart from giving unique IDs, the work will be properly monitored. All project information will be gradually made available on a single dashboard, Integration with PM Gati Shakti Portal.”

The CM further said that on the lines of “e-office”, they have envisaged the idea of 'e-Cabinet'. The cabinet file will be moved electronically.

Speaking with this newspaper, Parrag Jaiin Nainutia, Principal Secretary of the Information Technology Department, said, “The IT department is going to provide all necessary infrastructure in the state data center for the e-cabinet. I am hopeful that it will be rolled out within a month.”