JAMMU: In a major initiative to bring transparency and accountability in the execution of public works in furtherance of directions of Lieutenant Governor of J&K, Financial Commissioner, Finance, Dr Arun Kumar Mehta today launched a web based initiative to put details of all the ongoing capital works into the public domain.On the occasion Principal Secretary Information Department, Rohit Kansal; Director General Budget, Mohammad Yaqoob Itoo; Deputy Director, Budget, Shafaat Yehya besides the IT professionals from the National Informatics Centre (NIC) were present.The EMPOWERMENT (Enabling Monitoring of Public Overview of Works Being Executed &Resources for Meaningful Transparency) is a web portal hosting all the works being executed under the capex component of the UT budget. The same can be assessed through BEAMS website of Finance department.The objective of this initiative, as described by Dr Mehta is that every citizen should be able to view every detail about the nature and extent of work under execution in his or her area or any part of the Union Territory.The FC Finance also impressed that the initiative would be reviewed continuously for incorporation of improvements based on the feedback of general public. He urged the people to utilize the information available on this portal to help government bring about greater responsiveness andaccountability besides greater participation of stakeholders in the process of development happening in their area.The portal is an interactive one as it offers public an opportunity to give their feedback about any of the worksgoing on in J&K. Therefore this unique initiative taken by J&K government is the one made to enable the citizens to directly participate in the development of their area.It was informed that any person can search for any of the work going on in UT or District sector in his village, block anddistrict. The same will provide him/her all the relevant details of the work(s) going on there. The name, cost and position of funds released and expenditure incurred against the said work could be viewed by simply accessing the BEAMS website of the J&K Finance department. Thereafter every area specific, village specific work could be viewed along with the details pertaining to that work.The portal currently hosts some 13264 works being executed in the Union Territory at a cumulative cost of Rs10968.52 crores. These include 10838 works under UT sector to be completed at a cost of more than Rs10550 crores and 2426 District sector works to be completed at a cost of Rs418.50 crores. It has also been revealed that against the same an amount of more than Rs6738.33 crores has been released by Finance department through BEAMS portal and Rs 3646 crores expended till date.Moreover the portal offers links to view the works under execution under MGNREGA, PM Awas Yojana, Swachh Bharat Mission Urban and Swachh Bharat Mission Rural. These works could be accessed from this portal itself and would include all the works executed throughout J&K under any scheme in the future, as was given out by the officers on the occasion.FC Finance complimented the team of NIC for designing this portal in such a short period of time. He said that site had many of the significant details put forth lucidly. The portal has been designed by the IT experts from the local chapter of the National Informatics Centre (NIC) here at Moving Secretariat, Jammu and would be available for public usage from tomorrow forenoon.
