The Prime Minister’s Office is developing a concept of “war room” to execute and monitor big projects handled by various ministries. A separate mechanism will be formed immediately after the announcement of the budget, according to the PMO.

A similar announcement was made on the government’s Policies and Programmes unveiled by President Bidya Devi Bhandari on Monday with an objective of ending the tendency of not completing projects and devising a certain workplan to ensure their progress.

“We will not relay the reports forwarded by the ministries on various projects. Instead, the PMO will separately monitor and cross check the progress being made by the projects under them. A separate mechanism will be formed at the PMO that we call a ‘war room’ concept that can immediately take action or intervene as and when necessary,” said Kedar Bahadur Adhikari, secretary at the PMO.

Although the PMO has been monitoring ministries’ performances as a whole, the latest move—the first of its kind—is intended at setting certain targets based on the results.

The policies and programmes also talks about the transparency, accountability and pre-prediction of policy making to execution, with an emphasis on setting up separate centres in each ministry for resolving the problems facing the big projects.

“And the PMO will monitor the progress of the projects under each ministry,” says the policy paper.

The centre will work to make swift changes to the regulations and address any administrative and inter-ministerial issues, said Adhikari. He also dropped a hint that the centre might also have a team of experts from outside the government.

Most of the projects envisioned in the policies and programmes called “driver of the economic development” will be accorded top  priority, according to officials. Although the ministries have been involved in several areas under their jurisdiction, the PMO plans to focus on a few priority areas to make the monitoring more effective.

The policy document has outlined seven key areas: agriculture, energy, industry, transportation, physical infrastructure, information and technology, tourism and urban development as driver of the economic growth. 

“The PMO will also work on finding the right investment in these areas as well as setting the target for effective results and timely completion of the projects,” said Adhikari.

The PMO has already instructed the National Planning Commission and the Finance Ministry to prepare a new budget in line with the government’s policies and programmes.