Karnataka govt's new transparency tool to end fraud in infra works

Amid resistance from elected representatives and engineers, the Rural Development & Panchayat Raj (RDPR) department has brought about two lakh rural infrastructure works under a new app-based technology system that promises transparency.

The new system — Gandhi Sakshi Kayaka 2.0 — can check skulduggery, especially fake work bills and duplication of projects, authorities say. The GSK 2.0 went live last month.

The GSK application was first implemented in 2013. However, it merely served as a tool to record details of works.

"Now, the GSK 2.0 is a work-monitoring system. Details of works are recorded before they commence, during their execution and after their completion," Additional Chief Secretary (RDPR) L K Atheeq, who is driving the GSK 2.0 rollout, said.

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"Take, for example work on developing a road. Officials will use the GSK mobile app and traverse the road that is to be developed. The entire stretch gets spatially mapped. Photos have to be uploaded for every 200 m and they get geotagged," Atheeq explained.

These features were missing from the previous version of GSK.

The idea was to capture the physical and financial progress of infrastructure to determine payments to contractors. As it turned out, however, data entry used to happen only when the bill came to the government for payments. "There was no option to geotag photos. There used to be a lot of fakes. There were loopholes," a source said.

DH has reliably learnt that a few ministers have opposed the implementation of GSK 2.0. RDPR engineers, too, are against this.

Duplication of work is another concern that the GSK 2.0 aims to address. "The mandate now is to spatially locate works before they start. So, when the same work is proposed three months later, we will know that it is a duplication," an official said.

"It is mandated to capture the physical progress of each stage of work in real-time and payments to contractors are made online," the RDPR said in a note.

The new system gains significance in the wake of the government sanctioning 13,850 new road works in rural areas costing Rs 4,248.61 crore, way more than the budget allocation.