CAG slams Cong govt in AP for deficiencies

Hyderabad, Sept 6: The Comptroller and Auditor General of India on Saturday submitted its reports on the performance of various sectors in Andhra Pradesh government, finding 'deficiencies' in implementation of selected schemes and the resultant losses caused to the exchequer during the previous Congress rule for the year ended March 2013.

The six CAG reports on revenue, economic sector, public sector undertakings, local bodies, general and social sectors and directorate of mines and geology were tabled in the state Assembly on the last day of Budget session.

The weaker section housing schemes, social security pension schemes, works of irrigation department, implementation of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act and the functioning of some PSUs came in for sharp scrutiny by the central auditor.

Indiramma Houses, a 'flagship' programme of the Congress government, failed to achieve the objective of 'saturation concept' even six years after its launch in 2006, the CAG observed.

Of the 64,32,106 houses sanctioned between 2006-07 and 2012-13, only 43,18,310 were completed though the houses were to be completed within the sanctioned year.

'The government had not released budgetary allocation in full in any of the years during 2008-13. While a provision of Rs 10,187 crore was made in the annual budgets from 2008-09 to 2012-13 for Indiramma houses, only Rs 7,433 crore was released, marking a shortfall of Rs 2,753.50 crore,' the CAG report, prepared by Principal Accountant General Vani Sriram, pointed out.

'The unit cost fixed by the government for Indiramma houses (Rs 45,000 per unit in 2011-12) was not sufficient and unrealistic to complete construction and poorest of poor were unable to cope with extra expenditure as Rs 90,000 (per unit) was required as per conservative estimate for constructing 225 sft-size dwelling,' the Principal Accountant General noted.

This was reflected in the fact that construction of 12.87 lakh units was not even commenced out of 64.32 lakh sanctioned after a lapse of six years.

'Due to lack of input and validation controls, inadequate scrutiny of applications and incorrect processing of cases, some ineligible beneficiaries had derived benefits from the scheme.

'Monitoring was ineffective and in that the department has not taken action for recovery of amounts from ineligible beneficiaries,' the auditor remarked.

On road works taken up in Public-Private Partnership mode, the CAG found that the department did not have a standard policy or procedure for identifying the projects.

'There were cases of taking up projects without establishing technical requirement and financial viability. Decisions were changed like switching from Build-Operate-Transfer mode to conventional mode, toll mode to annuity mode and vice-versa.

'Bidding process also lacked transparency and projects were not completed in time due to non-handing over of lands and non-shifting of utilities,' the report said. All this resulted in loss of crores of rupees to the exchequer on various counts.

Reviewing the performance of Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation, with reference to construction of Commuter Amenity Centres and Bus Terminal Complexes under the JnNURM, the CAG said the Corporation prepared Detailed Project Report without considering important aspects like market potential, financial feasibility for each CAC.

As a result, the Corporation could not complete even the pilot project sanctioned by the Government of India in February 2008 for creation of 11 infrastructure projects at a cost of Rs 162.13 crore.