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‘Haryana govt depts spending crores to hire private operators for projects’

A detailed note giving specific instances of the departments having hired private operators has been submitted to Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar’s office, after which the latter sought information on the issue.

HARSAC, haryana cm manohar lal khattar, haryana govt department, haryana news, indian express Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar. (Express file photo)

AT LEAST five departments of the Haryana government have come under the scanner after they were found to be hiring private operators and splurging crores of government money for Geographic Information System (GIS) and remote sensing-related projects without consulting guidelines set by Haryana’s own Space Applications Centre (HARSAC). HARSAC is a nodal agency for such works and had already done a few such projects, in some cases even at one-fifth of the cost at which private companies are being hired.

HARSAC has now raised strong objections to being ignored by such departments. A detailed note giving specific instances of these departments having hired private operators has been submitted to Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar’s office, after which the latter sought information on the issue.

Documents accessed by The Indian Express revealed that the departments including industries and commerce, forests, town and country planning, urban local bodies and Haryana Police have indulged in such practices of ignoring HARSAC and engaging private operators. “All these Requests for Proposals (RFPs)/tenders that the government’s various departments floated were not discussed with HARSAC. However, later on, such departments approach HARSAC to validate the data structure that the vendors give them, creating unnecessary duplication of work and loss to government exchequer,” a senior officer of HARSAC told The Indian Express.

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“HARSAC’s aim was that the data creation under any project, which may be created either by HARSAC or any outsourcing agency, should maintain…a standard format. Lastly, being a nodal agency of the state for remote sensing and GIS work, it should be authorised to act as a data repository irrespective of whomsoever may be creating the data so that if other departments need it, there should not be replication of work,” another officer said.

HARSAC Principal Scientist Dr Sultan Singh raised these issues on October 4. Three days later, on Dr Sultan Singh’s observations, the then principal secretary, science and technology, Ashok Khemka had recommended that the instructions be issued to all departments and bodies under the state government and also apprised Science and Technology Minister Anil Vij.

Festive offer

On October 16, Additional Principal Secretary to Khattar, V Umashankar, wrote, “The CM would like to know of any instance where a department has issued tenders for GIS-based applications contrary to the requirements.” In response of the chief minister’s queries, HARSAC listed specific instances of five government departments and elaborated how similar work that was now being outsourced, had already been done by HARSAC. Sources in the government said the matter was under consideration of the chief minister’s office.

On November 26, when Khemka wrote on the file, calling it a “serious matter” that required a “considered response”. However, the next day, he was transferred out of science and technology department.

What the departments did

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Department of industries and commerce: This department awarded a GIS project to a private vendor.
HARSAC stated that it has already put in substantial effort to build data and web GIS application and the current project is a replication of this effort. Now, the department of industries and commerce is requesting HARSAC to provide GIS data to the private vendor in order to complete the project work.

Department of forests: It attempted bespoke application development through a private vendor.
HARSAC observed that dataset in various projects has already been developed by HARSAC, the same with minor modification can be extended to the forest department, as a web GIS application, at substantially lesser cost and efforts. The forest department has gone ahead without any consultations and is now expecting HARSAC to assist them with datasets.

Department of urban local nodies: A tender titled ‘Preparation of GIS based base map, composite sajra map, mosaic and existing land use map of municipal council, Sohna’. The scope of work includes digitisation of revenue records and demarcation of existing buildings including residential, commercial, institutional etc., detailed survey for ground water level and preparation of contour maps of ground water table of municipal areas.
HARSAC stated that most of the work under this RFP’s scope including ortho-rectification of satellite image, establishing GCPs, cadastral maps, contour maps have already been done by HARSAC.

Department of town and country planning: The DTCP initiated a project proposal with HARSAC earlier for satellite-based change management of Gurugram and Faridabad district at a cost of Rs 2 crore. It included change management along with development of Android app for field verification of TCP officers. However, the project was taken back and TCP floated the RFP with similar methodology, which HARSAC has submitted, and recently the bids were opened. Two private vendors have qualified M/s GIS Consortium with a cost of Rs 15 crore and other M/s Skymap Global with a cost of Rs 8 crore.

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Haryana Police: It floated an RFP for the ‘Haryana-100’ project including digitised mapping of police boundaries, road network etc for GIS data mobile application with GPS system for location tracking, GIS-based facility at the communication officer’s desk which can display the caller’s location on GIS map.

HARSAC observed that this GIS work assignment process is under progress without consideration or consultation with HARSAC.

First uploaded on: 12-12-2019 at 12:29 IST
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