Manual for Development Projects - Planning Commission

Chapter-8
(i) Project completion report.
The aforementioned documents form the basis of the assessment of different project activities. The site
visits to the project will also assist in the assessment of the quantitative aspects of a project and its effect/
impact on the target group/beneficiaries. The following facts should be looked into in any evaluation
exercise:
i) Was the project properly conceived? Has it fulfilled its basic objectives? If not, what was wrong with the
basic design?
ii) Was the project adequately prepared? Were the forecasts of output or benefits correctly made to a
reasonable extent? Was the technical preparation adequate? How good were the original cost estimates? If
there were deficiencies in preparation, how those were removed or could be made up?
iii) Was the project implemented as per the plan? If not, was this because of its haphazard preparation or
because of delays in (a) the authorisation procedure, (b) obtaining suitable funds, and (c) other reasons?
What lessons could be learnt to improve the implementation of other projects?
Feed-back for the Future
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8.7 Feed-back is the most important element of a systematic and integrated approach towards project
appraisal, monitoring and evaluation. Essentially, it is the evaluation exercise which provides lessons for
the feed-back, because the main objective of such studies is to compare the actual outcome of the project
with the projections made in its appraisal and then the examination of essential positive and negative
effects of the project, providing important lessons for the future. The feed-back from evaluation is a basic
requirement of the management. An evaluation without any direction or support from the management can
hardly be meaningful. To promote feed-back from evaluation, it is necessary to (a) substantiate proper
evaluation findings and pay proper attention to specific issues of substance, (b) establish a feed-back
mechanism, preferably to the policy-makers and senior management, and (c) rely upon feed-back through
formal and informal arrangements. Feed-back from the evaluation is used for operational (mid-course
corrections and follow-up action), analytical (improvement of project design, objectives etc.) and policy
purposes (finding out the validity of a given development strategy etc.). To ensure that feed-back is used in
systematic manner, there must be an adequate institutional mechanism for channelling the findings and
recommendations to the appropriate decision-makers and managers for the necessary follow-up action. The
managers and policy-makers should know how to guide and use evaluation for their needs.
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9/23/2010