Project management to be promoted as a special discipline: Sriprakash Jaiswal

New Delhi, June 23 (ANI): Minister for State of Coal and Statistics and Programme Implementation, Sriprakash Jaiswal on Wednesday said that the Government will provide policy support to recognize project management as specialized discipline.

Addressing the National Consultation on Certification of Project Managers organized by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation here, Jaiswal said that India's growth story lies heavily on the effective management of its huge infrastructure agenda, and in particular on the successful and timely completion of major projects.

"Therefore, learning and using the best project management practices is crucial ingredient for high GDP growth in India in coming years," he added.

Expressing concern over time and cost overruns in some Central Sector Projects, Jaiswal said it is major problem affecting these projects, however due to monitoring by his Ministry the cost of overruns has come down from 62 per cent in 1991 to 13.9 per cent in December 2009.

He said that there is need to develop a cadre of professionally trained Project Managers so that complex and large infrastructure projects are professionally managed.

Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MOSPI) has been monitoring central sector projects on monthly basis in 16 key infrastructure sectors with respect to time and cost overrun in to flag the issues and to suggest to the corrective action.

It is estimated that the country has about 1.8 lakh Project Managers in various sectors. bout 20,000 or so in all are certified till date by various agencies.

The strength of Project Managers in India is growing by about 36,000 yearly but the country is still short of trained and certified Project Managers in line with the requirements. (ANI)