Srinagar: Languishing scheme projects in Jammu and Kashmir are encountering further delays, prompting officials to give a strong directive to all departments to finish works by the end of the current month, since funding for projects beyond June 2023 would be difficult unless unusual circumstances exist.
Jammu and Kashmir Infrastructure Development Finance Corporation (JKIDFC) Ltd has instructed the concerned departments to complete the projects from the Languishing Scheme of the previous Financial Year (FY) by the end of this month.
“JKIDFC has directed departments to submit a report justifying the reason for the delay in completion of the projects to the JKIDFC latest positively along with the completion date of the projects. Departments were further directed to complete all the remaining projects before ending June and in exceptional cases by July 2023,” said a senior official privy to the meeting.
He said that a review meeting was chaired to review the pace of projects and also communicate to departments to expedite their pace of execution of works.
“The projects have been languishing for so many years and JKIDFC expects that the remaining projects are completed before June 30, 2023, on a fast-track basis by all the concerned departments. The progress of the ongoing projects funded under JKIDFC should be conducted with the Administrative Secretaries by the end of May 2023,” reads a note of the minutes of the meeting of JKIDFC attended by top officials.
The J&K administration came up with the idea of creating the JKIDFC in 2018 to generate up to Rs 8,000 crore to support the completion of projects that had been sitting unfinished in J&K for decades due to a lack of funding.
JKIDFC has taken out loans from banks and other organisations to pay for the J&K plan projects that are yet unfinished.
For JKIDFC in particular, designated income streams from road tax, energy duty, toll tax, wood extraction, and water connections have been simplified for the purpose of servicing the loans obtained from various financial institutions and nationalised banks.
Of the 2357 projects totalling Rs 7110.66 crore that was approved, 1100 projects totalling Rs 1555.16 crore were finished.
Following the completion of the current projects, JKIDFC would no longer take up new projects for finance, according to the announcement made by the J&K government.
According to a directive from the Finance Department, the JKIDFC should stop accepting new stalled projects in J&K until the current projects are finished.
In addition, it stated that a Project Monitoring Unit (PMU) would be established in the Finance Department for the maintenance, improvement, and modification of IT-enabled systems being used in the department like BEAMS, JKPaysys, PROOF, EMPOWERMENT portal, e-Audit portal, Mera Vetan, GRAS, GPF system, DBT, PFMS, and E-Billing System.