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Our Bureau

New Delhi , Dec. 25

THE Parliamentary Standing Committee on Industry has come down heavily on the Ministry of Steel for lingering over the findings of the Baijal Committee on the delay and subsequent cost overruns in the modernisation of various plants of Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL).

The committee has stated that individuals and agencies responsible for such "criminal wastage" of public funds must be penalised.

In its latest report tabled in Parliament this week, the committee has stated that "the delay in modernisation projects occurred due to lack of coordination between management and various operating agencies and failure of monitoring mechanism" and has recommended that "the Government should fix responsibilities for delay caused in implementation of modernisation projects which led to cost overruns."

According to the committee's report, "Time and cost overruns are purely a case of sheer mismanagement which led to criminal wastage of public funds."

It may be mentioned that the Ministry of Steel had constituted a committee to enquire into the implementation of modernisation projects of various SAIL plants headed by Mr J.S. Baijal, former Secretary in the Planning Commission, in 2000 to enquire into the large cost and time overruns of these projects. The Baijal Committee was set up following recommendations of the Standing Committee on Industry.

Initially the Government had approved the modernisation of Durgapur steel plant and Rourkela steel plant at estimated costs of Rs 2,668 crore and Rs 2,461 crore respectively. The projects were finally completed in March 1998 and November 1999. The revised costs of these projects are estimated to be Rs 5,075 crore and Rs 5,105 crore respectively.

Now, in its current report, the standing committee has expressed its unhappiness over the delay on part of the Government on acting on the findings of the Baijal Committee.

The committee, in its report, had stated that "the Ministry of Steel should not linger over the findings of the Baijal Committee on delay aspect in the modernisation of DSP, RSP and BSL," and added that the Ministry should expedite the process of identifying the reasons and persons responsible for shortcomings and omissions in the implementation process of modernisation of SAIL and initiate action.

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Modernisation of SAIL plants — Parliamentary panel raps Steel Ministry for delay, cost overruns

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