PPCPA put in place to monitor departmental projects in J&K

Jammu, Jan 27: Qualified professionals as consultants or domain experts will ensure institutional, regulatory and procedural reforms in the projects to be undertaken by different departments in J&K under Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode.

These domain experts will be part of Public Private Partnership cum Project Appraisal Cell (PPCPA) constituted by the J&K government, in supersession of all previous orders on the subject, besides a Chief Secretary-led 6-member Steering panel in the Planning Development & Monitoring Department.

PPCPA in coordination with the Steering panel will oversee the selection, formulation and implementation of the projects to be undertaken by different departments.

As per officials, the actual filling of positions in PPCPA will be on the basis of project requirement and manpower support received from NITI Aayog and the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA), Government of India from time to time.

With a team leader and MIS Network manager, PPCPA will have ten domain experts related to urban development; procurement; infrastructure (support personnel); planning cum housing; transport; industries cum tourism; social sector; finance and appraisal; Public Private Partnership (PPP) and environment.

This Cell has been mandated to seek qualified professionals as consultants or domain experts to be housed in the PPCPA for institutional, regulatory and procedural reforms and to work towards standardization of PPP documents. It has also been tasked to develop concession agreements in different sectors; appraisal of projects, framing of Standard Bid Documents, scrutinizing the cost escalation proposals and preparation of a shelf of projects.

Building the capacity of the government to handhold various departments in identification, preparation and implementation of projects under PPP mode; process cases under Viability Gap Funding (VGF) under various PPP schemes of the Government of India too will come under the mandate given to the Cell.

“It will appraise the project reports, DPRs costing more than Rs 10 crore (or as deemed fit by the government); carry out Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) and Internal Rate of Return (IRR) or Return on Investment (ROI) of the project and will provided assistance in engagement of project specific Transactional Advisor, as per requirement,” GAD secretary Dr Piyush Singla outlined the terms of reference of Cell.

The Steering committee for PPP projects with the Chief Secretary as its chairman will have Administrative Secretaries of Finance; Revenue; Law, Justice & Parliamentary Affairs departments and that of concerned implementing department as members. The Administrative Secretary Planning Development & Monitoring department will be its member secretary.

The panel will have to oversee the selection, formulation and implementation of the projects to be undertaken by the line departments besides the mandate to approve the projects for funding under Viability Gap Funding scheme of the Government of India and other sources of funding.

“The quantum of viability funding for recommendation to DEA, Ministry of Finance, Government of India; the UT share of Viability Gap Funding as per norms of Viability Gap Funding scheme notified by DEA, Government of India within the budgetary provisions or any other issue related to successful implementation of PPP projects will have to be approved by the Steering panel,” Dr Singla specified, adding that all PPP projects would be undertaken after seeking approval of the competent authority.