Arya News - Seven regional infrastructure development offices operate at 53 percent staffing, yet still report a 92 per cent delivery rate.
THIMPHU – The seven Regional Offices for Infrastructure Development (ROID), established by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport (MoIT) to ease engineering workload in the dzongkhags, are operating with just 83 of their 156 approved staff positions filled.
The offices, located in Punakha, Paro, Phuentsholing, Mongar, Samdrupjongkhar, Tsirang and Trongsa, provide specialised services that dzongkhag engineering sectors are not equipped to handle alone, including complex design work, scrutiny of private drawings and preparation of local area plans (LAPs).
The Director General of the Department of Infrastructure Development, Karma Dupchuk, said the ROID model evolved from the Regional Engineering Cluster (REC) concept, which was originally intended to cluster all engineers from the dzongkhags.
That plan was scaled back after dzongdas raised concerns about service inconvenience, with a full engineering sector maintained within each dzongkhag administration, while only specialised functions are mandated to the seven regional offices.
The arrangement, Karma Dupchuk said, makes the best use of a limited pool of architects, planners and structural engineers, whose work demands a level of collaboration not possible under the dzongkhag structure, where engineers deployed to gewogs often become generalists rather than specialists.
The ROID model, he added, also allows for deeper skills development, since training can be focused on specific professional streams, while dzongkhag engineering capacity is increasingly directed towards supervision, monitoring, quality management, and operation and maintenance.
The engineering sector has one of the highest attrition rates in the civil service, according to the department.
To ease the burden, the ministry has introduced performance-based contract models such as Design-Build and Design-Build-Operate-Transfer, while upskilling dzongkhag technicians to supervise smaller works.
Project engineers are also recruited on contracts tied to specific projects and stationed full-time at worksites to reduce pressure on permanent staff.
Officials said ROID work depends on close collaboration among planners, GIS specialists, architects and engineers, and that the model is already delivering results, including the review of local area plans for Nganglam, Samtse, Trashiyangtse, Dagapela, Autsho, Haa, Mongar, Kabesa, Ngabiphu and Paro.
The REC concept was first piloted across Gasa, Punakha and Wangdue dzongkhags as REC Punakha, with the aim of decentralising technical expertise by building critical mass at the regional level for planning, design and implementation, while reducing the thinning of resources and encouraging specialisation.
It was later renamed the ROID and rolled out across all seven regions, giving dzongkhags access to standardised planning and design services.
The offices currently have 83 staff, or 53 percent of the 156 positions approved under the 13th Plan.
Some regional offices currently have only six or seven engineers, most of them recent graduates, short of the more than 15 typically required.
Officials said the shortfall affects turnaround time, despite close coordination among the regional offices, dzongkhags and the department to encourage proactive submission of design requests and ensure timely delivery.
Despite staffing constraints, department officials said the ROIDs are meeting their mandate, with a 92 percent effective delivery rate last financial year, with more than 233 design services completed, 641 private drawings scrutinised and 23 project implementation support cases handled.
The Ministry of Education and Skills Development is the only other ministry known to hire contract engineers, particualrly for central schools through a separate capital budget that covers project management and project-tied contract staff, according to the department.
“The engineer shortage has emerged as a nationally significant issue, with many mid- and senior-level professionals exiting the service and onboarding numbers dropping,” officials said. “Addressing this requires collective effort at the highest levels, and the ministry is working on a proposal to tackle the issue.”
The ministry plans to progressively fill staffing gaps over the course of the 13th Plan, subject to the availability of qualified engineers through the single-window recruitment cycle and contract hiring, with priority given to offices facing the most critical shortages.
The Royal Civil Service Commission (RCSC) is also involved, with joint efforts such as campus recruitment already bringing a few engineers on board.
Several dzongkhags have written to the RCSC citing critical engineer shortages and urging the urgent deployment of additional personnel.
Lhuentse Dzongkhag Administration recently wrote to the RCSC citing a critical shortage and requesting the immediate deployment of engineers. Dzongkhag officials said only eight of its 14 approved engineer positions are currently filled.
Another dzongkhag official said that the shortage puts dzongkhags at risk of being unable to adequately plan, supervise and monitor development activities within required timeframes, given that construction accounts for the bulk of the annual capital work plan.
“If left unaddressed, the gap could compromise the quality and timely delivery of infrastructure, and affect the capital work programme for the financial year,” the official said.
A dzongkhag official from the south said that while critical and complex design work is handled by the ROID, manpower shortages there also delay the endorsement and completion of designs.
Monitoring construction on the ground, he said, is difficult and is compromising quality. “Currently, one engineer has to monitor five to six sites. There is a need for an adequate number of engineers.”
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