Delay in Govt. Project : Apolitical Conspiracy

Cost deficiency in Govt. Project: Apolitical Conspiracy in India.
The Gosikhurd Irrigation Project (GIP) is located in Pauni taluka of Bhandara district. The dam is constructed on Wainganga river which is the biggest in Godavari basin near Gosikhurd village, 45 km away from Bhandara town. The storage capacity of dam is about 1146 Mm. It is expected to bring an area of 190000 Ha under irrigation in the areas of Nagpur, Bhandara and Chandrapur districts.
The Gosikhurd project was decided back in 1978 but received official clearance later, in 1982 from the State of Maharashtra and in 1986 from the Central Water Commission. It was initiated under the tribal sub-plan of the Sixth Five-Year Plan (1980-1985) of the Government of India, aimed at developing in particular the tribal region of the district of Chandrapur, situated in the command area. Its completion is expected by the end of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan, which makes it one of the oldest river-basin projects to be achieved, despite being of a comparatively small size if put in perspective with the heard-of infamous Sardar Sarovar or older dams such as Hirakud.
Though it was expected to complete by the end of 11th five year plan but now it is the ending of 12th five year plan even then it did not completed. The issue of rehabilitation and resettlement did not solved properly by the government. The main reason is that a politics of the political parties. No political party wants to resolve this issue completely. The congress party was asking the votes to the people in the name of development but congress govt. failed to complete this project. The BJP also doing the same practice, there was two regimes BJP had the govt. in Maharashtra but they are also doing the same thing which has been done by the previous govt's.
The corruption is the major problem of delay in govt. project. The politician gives the tender of the project to their relatives or those who give them bribe. The Govt. officers also take the bribe from the contractor for passing the bill and compromising the quality of work. The politician does the conspiracy with opposition party leaders to creating the new issue or not solving the existing problem of the people. The major example is Gosikhurd project.
The Gosikhurd project initial Cost was only 372.22 crore in 1988 when it was inaugurated by former prime minister Rajive Gandhi. It was expected to complete till 11th plan and till then cost had been increased 7777.85 crore. Till this moment there was the congress govt. in state as well as in central. But when this BJP govt. came in power in 2014, they produce the budget of this dam is 18876.42 crore. Within one year they increased the cost of this project by more than double.
And now, the official authorities are so far displaying great incapacity in implementing or even planning options of assets restoration or forging coherent new employment options for the affected people. There are strong reasons to believe the project is going to lead to strong impoverishment and social downgrading of many a peasant or fishermen. These are the effects of deficiency of cost in govt. project, corrupt political and govt. official practices.
Government has formed National Rehabilitation and Resettlement policy-2007for the purpose of proper rehabilitation of the project affected families. Before this, Maharashtra government is first state in the country who passed a law regarding Rehabilitation in 1976 which was further amended in 1986 and received the President's assent in 1989 is now known as Maharashtra Project Affected Persons Rehabilitation Act of 1986 (MPAPRA-1986). This Act gives guidelines to execute the rehabilitation work in Maharashtra state, provides inter alia to rehabilitate affected persons from affected zone to the benefitted zone of irrigation projects or elsewhere. Later on in Maharashtra State Government revised policy and formed new rehabilitation Act MPAPRA-1999.
Even when new policy came into force by the central govt. the Government of Maharashtra also established Maharashtra state rehabilitation authority in the year 2006 in order to make proper and quality rehabilitation' of the PAP's of all irrigation projects in the state. But all these are on paper; there are the villagers who are still facing the problem of displacement. Mr.Vilas bhongade (Organiser, Gosikhurd Prakalpgrast Sangharsh Samiti) is fighting for the rights of the displaced people by this dam.
In general practice, fighting with the democratic govt. is wasting of time because we have representative form of government. People elect their representative to represent them in the parliament/state assembly. But due to corrupt political practices the representative does not take care of the people's problem. Therefore India is still developing country after 65 years of the independence.
If we wants to bring the development in real sense then there is need to do regulatory reforms in India. Such as Indian bureaucracy is monolithic, there is needed to break down it and contracting out for bringing the efficiency in governmental work. But Indian people became habitual for all these types of practices. Politician, bureaucrats and contractures are grabbing the 50% cost of any governmental projects. Therefore they do the will-full delay in completion of such projects because they know that if delay will be there then cost of the project will automatically increase.
On the above observation, my view is that India needs more moral reforms than any other reforms. In most corrupt countries in the world, India is having 88th place in that list. However, India haves the multi culture, religion, caste diversity and upper class domination according to this facets the political parties ideology has been developed. Each party tries to overcome on each other for this they uses very vulgar politics.


Refereces:-
Sebastian Morris, COST AND TIME OVERRUNS IN PUBLIC SECTOR PROJECTS,
Economic and Political Weekly, Nov.24, 1990, Vol. XXV, No.47,pp. M-154 to M-168.
Wong, Evelyn, "Damning The Dams: A Study of Cost Benefit Analysis In Large Dams
Through The Lens of India's Sardar Sarovar Project" (2013). Scripps Senior .Paper 169.
Bongade Vilas, "Gosekhurd Prakalp Va Prakalpgrastanchya Samshya," 2012.