How Public Works Department works?

How Public Works Department works?

The Kautilya’s book on Arthashastra is quite famous and explained the political and administrative functions of a Government. During the pre-independence era of India, the Hindu Kings have power to build the roads, construct buildings, and supervise as well as participate in irrigation and engineering works of their kingdom. Thereafter, at the time of British rulers, such works are taken over by East India Company through various departments including irrigation, power, water supply, roads, buildings etc.

Administration of Public Works:

Now-a-days, the work of roads and buildings is under the control of Public Works Department (Building and Roads) i.e. PWD (B&R). The water supply functions are also under the control of PWD and known as PWD (Water Supply and Sanitation). A PWD officer usually an Engineer in educational background, undertakes various operations relating to finance, accounting, service rules, and also deal with the treasury operations. For effective administration of public works’ operations, a Superintending Engineer (S.E) or Executive Engineer (XEN) should be well versed with the following:

            (i)                         State Treasury Rules
(ii)                      State Financial Rules
(iii)                  Accounting Cody of Government
(iv)                   Budget Manual
(v)                      Civil Service Rules
(vi)                   Manual of Public Works Department
(vii)                Right to Information Act
(viii)            Grievance Redressal Mechanism

Organizational Structure of Public Works Department:

The public works are very wide in scope and requires to be undertaken with the assistance of legal experts, officers of information technology, finance experts, and administrators. The head office undertakes the operations through the field offices working under direct control of Superintending Engineers (SEs). The SEs work under direct control of Chief Engineers working at head office (under Engineer-in-Chief i.e. EIC) particularly to implement various projects provided by the Government. The SEs took work from XENs at the field level. The field offices are divided into Circles, Divisions, Sub-Divisions and Sections in order to enforce effective administrative control and fixing the responsibilities of the concerned in-charge officers i.e. Executive Engineers, Sub-Divisional Engineers, Junior Engineers respectively. Each officer inspects the functions of the subordinate offices with regard to ensure the effective implementation of projects and programmes provided by the EIC.

Engagement of Labour for Construction Works:

The executing work of construction, it is required to hire the labour and the labour is hired either on contract or by using Muster Roll for limited and defined purpose as per the requirement of the work. The services of labour can also be outsourced if available through outsourcing contacts. For example, the housekeeping or horticulture works can easily be outsourced. The SEs and XENs ensure the transparency in contract agreements with the registered contractors. (Continued to... Functions of PWD)

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