Project India

Project India

February 2017

By Dr Ashutosh Karnatak

Indian Energy Scenario:

Indian energy basket is primarily coal, oil and gas. 70 percent of the oil demand is being met through the imports of crude and petroleum products at an approximate net import cost of Rs. 5,26,500.

Presently around 570 government sector projects (costing Rs. 150 crores or more) are under execution out of which around 250 projects are overshooting in time and thereby leading to a cost overrun of approximately Rs. 1,42,000 crores. If 30 per cent of the cost overrun in government sector projects could be controlled by better project management practices, the growth in net oil import cost is recovered.

The time overrun has two impacts:

1) The project will not be able to generate revenue for which it had been conceived.

2) Time overrun may lead to cost overrun, which has to be borne by the client  impacting the viability of the project.

The way forward:

Roots of these concerns in execution can be tracked down to lack of adequate project management education during academic life of the project personnel. Further, the existing academic system scarcely covers other important aspects such as time management, stress management, and conflict resolution skills which are highly essential while handling projects.

Project Management if taught from the right age (from Vth – VIth standard), will develop positive attitude; rational thinking abilities; essential skills such as time management, decision making and right reflexes while facing realistic situations.

This education will be beneficial to:

• Client personnel involved in projects
• Students and family members
• Contractors
• MPs / MLAs / Block pramukhs

The above is possible only when there is   a movement of “projectization of India”,which is possible only when the knowledge of project management is disseminated at all the levels.

Mission Project India

Project Management education should be introduced from Vth Standard onwards.  It should also be introduced as a specialisation in Bachelor’s degree where one can get degree as Bachelor in Project Management (BPM)– this will enhance the employment options of the individual in comparison to other streams.

Against an estimated requirement of five lakh skilled Project Managers in India, there are only 30000 presently and this gap is expected to grow further in the coming years.

A breakthrough technique

Arjuna-MC4E2 (e) is a technique, wherein the project manager is required to take care of the aspects as mentioned below for successful execution of Projects.

Arjuna-MC4E2 (e) is a good Monitoring and Controlling technique. The letters stand for:

M – Milestone monitoring

C – Constraint monitoring

C – Commitment monitoring

C – Change monitoring

C – Cost monitoring

E – Exception monitoring

E – Early warning monitoring

e- Educational requirements

In brief the technique can be explained as below:

• Before beginning a project, chalk out the detailed project schedule, which is to be agreed by the client, consultant and the contractors.
• Each activity in the schedule is to be split into number of milestones.
• All these milestones are to be periodically reviewed.
• In case any milestone is not achieved, constraints behind such variation are to be identified so that they are resolved at the earliest.
• For resolving these constraints and to achieve the milestones, clear responsibility needs to be allocated and their commitment needs to be recorded.

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