New Delhi: Amid the continuing military stand-off with China at Doklam in Bhutanese territory, India has decided to speed up construction of border roads in the eastern sector leading to the Sino-Indian border in the face of delays and to remove bottlenecks.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) on Sunday said it “has decided to delegate administrative and financial powers to the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) right upto the level of Chief Engineer and Task Force Commander, so as to avoid delays on account of references between the Chief Engineer and HQ DGBR (DG-Border Roads) and also between HQ DGBR and the ministry. The MoD said it “intends to bring transformational changes in the organisation (BRO) in order to improve the pace of execution of works and to achieve the desired outcomes according to the requirement of the Armed Forces”.
India has also decided to “replace obsolete construction equipment in the BRO with modern equipment”
Functioning under the control of the MoD since 2015, the BRO is engaged in road construction to provide connectivity to difficult and inaccessible regions in the border areas of the country.
The government said that "it is expected that with delegation of powers by the MoD to the BRO, the pace of road construction in border areas would improve and the BRO would be able to complete ongoing/new projects in compressed timelines."
In a statement on Sunday, the MoD said, "In line with the aim to bring in transformational changes in the BRO, various powers of delegation have been revised. According to the earlier delegation of powers, a Chief Engineer in the BRO could give administrative approval of works only upto Rs 10 crore, that too only for departmental works, whereas the ADGBR had powers to accord administrative approval only upto Rs 20 crore for departmental works.
For contractual works, all administrative approvals were given by DGBR, who had powers only upto Rs 50 crore. Enhancing the powers at all levels in the BRO, the Ministry of Defence has now approved that for both departmental and contractual mode of execution, a Chief Engineer of BRO can accord administrative approval upto Rs. 50 crore, ADGBR upto Rs. 75 crore and DGBR upto Rs. 100 crore."
The MoD added, "There also is a need to replace obsolete construction equipment in the BRO with modern equipment. According to the earlier delegation of powers, DGBR had powers only upto Rs 7.5 crore for procurement of indigenous equipment and Rs. 3 crore for procurement of imported equipment. All other cases of procurement had to be referred to the Ministry of Defence. In order to fast track the procurement of latest construction machinery and equipment in the BRO, the Ministry of Defence has enhanced the delegation of powers upto Rs.100 crore to DGBR for procurement of both indigenous/imported equipment."
The MoD also said, "Further, according to the earlier delegation of powers, a Chief Engineer in the BRO had the power to accept execution of contracts only upto Rs. 10 crore, ADGBR had powers upto Rs. 20 crore, beyond which all tenders had to be sent to DGBR. With the intent to speed up the tendering process, the Ministry of Defence has now enhanced the powers of Chief Engineer for acceptance of bids with cost of contract upto Rs. 100 crore and that of ADGBR for cost of contract upto Rs. 300 crore. With this delegation, the entire tendering process including acceptance of
bids would be completed at the level of Chief Engineer/ADGBR for a majority of the contracts."
It further said. "For adopting the DPR mode of execution, there is a need to outsource consultancy services. According to the earlier delegation of powers, a Chief Engineer had powers only upto Rs10 lakh, ADGBR upto Rs. 50 lakh and DGBR upto Rs. 2 crore. The Ministry of Defence has now enhanced the powers of Chief Engineer to accord administrative approval for outsourcing of consultancy services upto Rs. 2 crore and ADGBR upto Rs. 5 crore and full powers beyond Rs. 5 crore to DGBR," the MoD also said.
