In an exclusive interview, the newly appointed Director General (War Room-Infrastructure) Radheshyam Mopalwar has said the government’s focus is on time-bound implementation of projects and there will be zero tolerance for time and cost escalations and overruns.
Q: What will be your priorities as head of the war room for infrastructure projects?
A: Major infrastructure projects will be reviewed absolutely regularly, fortnightly and monthly. There are a large number of infrastructure projects including bullet train, dedicated foreign corridor, Baroda Mumbai expressway, Samruddhi Marg, Pune ring road, multimodal corridor, Jalna Nanded expressway, Konkan expressway. The Chief Minister has instructed to connect each district by almost grid access control expressway that will go up to 5,000 km in years to come. Basically, a long-term infrastructure vision is being articulated. It will be set into motion in such a way that all the aspects will be on auto pilot.
There are other projects where the state has partnership with the Government of India. Some projects like Versova Virar link which the Centre is partnering with Maharashtra. There is Surat expressway. It is not just expressways but the metro projects, irrigation projects will also be reviewed by the war room. There are multiple clearances which are needed for the project development besides there are inter departmental agency issues. The shifting of utilities is important and for that there is a need for coordination with them. In addition, there are right-of-way issues that need to be tackled.
War room will be monitoring projects, coordinating with inter-departmental agencies. There are identified projects, timeframes and the deliverables.
Q: Apart from clearances, tieing up finances is another key issue. How will this be addressed?
A) Tieing up finance is important. All these issues will be coordinated and what is realistic with innovation is possible. Availability of finance is an important aspect. In the Samruddhi marg, the Maharashtra Government has put in an equity of almost Rs 28,000 crore and it came from innovative ways of fundraising and also the multilateral funding. In case of bullet train funding, it will be a long-term funding for 65 years with a moratorium and lowest coupon rate. Number of means to be explored and projects need to be planned. If review projects regularly and adhere to compliance schedules the clearances will come in time. However, the problem is that there is generally no focus. The projects with all clearances and funds at their disposal apart from work orders are given they should be completed in time to avoid cost and time overruns.
Furthermore, there will be a lot of synergy and planning at local government, state and the Central government and they will be addressed on priority basis.
Q: How challenging is your job considering the involvement of multiple issues?
A: War room has been set up and activated for a time-bound delivery in the most compliant manner. The kind of legal and regulatory regime that you have you cannot now cut the corners or have shortcuts. Focus now will be on full term plan, early term plan or completion of project before time frame so that there should not be any obstructions.
The government is keen on a time-bound implementation, whatever delays there have been completely taken care of. No further time and cost overruns and escalations will be tolerated.
