Eastern Mirror Desk
Dimapur, Sep. 25: The audit report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) for Nagaland for the year ending March 2017 has astounding revelations about the performance of the government machineries during the past five years. The report has stated gross misappropriation of funds and schemes across the departments in the social, economic, and revenue; and dozens of projects mentioned to be “completed,” but were not existent.
Department of Public Health Engineering
The CAG report stated that the National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP), which was launched in 2009 for to ensure delivery of safe and adequate drinking water to the rural population of the country, and implemented by the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation (MDWS) didn’t quite work in Nagaland with only 4.9 percent (15,559) of households being covered with individual piped water supply connections.
Laboratories in Dimapur, Kohima and Tuensang failed to carry out the prescribed number of bacteriological and chemical contamination tests to ensure the supply of safe drinking water, and that field testing kits purchased at the cost of INR 1.32 crore were not distributed to all the targeted villages, therefore compromising the quality of water. Galvanised water pipes costing INR 241.81 crore was procured during 2012-17 without inviting tenders and the department paid INR 2.67 crore for three unexecuted works and INR 0.61 crore for three short executed works.
Examination of records revealed that funds amounting to INR 431.77 crore were made available by the government of India for NRDWP but only INR 379.43 crore was used during 2012-17. There was delay in the release of funds for up to 12 months by the state government. It was also found out that the state government had not released its matching share of INR 283.50 lakh during 2016-17 for the scheme.
The department had used INR 15 lakh during 2012-13 from NRDWP funds for procurement of two vehicles, which was not permissible, and the department hadn’t complied with the direction of the central government to recover the expenditure on vehicles. It was also observed that during 2013-14, the department had incurred INR 32 lakh for conducting baseline survey on rural sanitation and booked this expenditure under ‘Support’ component of the NRDWP fund. The GMS pipes costing INR 58.63 lakh issued by Store division, Dimapur to Tuensang division in 2014 didn’t reach the destination till July 2017. The department was also silent on the non-receipt of material worth INR 1.80 crore at Store division, Dimapur even though full payment had been made to the suppliers, said the CAG report.
The inspection team found out that from 52 schemes out of the total 1048 in the state that three costing INR 2.67 crore during 2014-16 didn’t exist though it was mentioned completed as on March 2017. The report revealed that there were several incomplete, sub-standard and non-functional projects, putting the loss to several crore of rupees.
It has also been revealed that 69 percent (1,620 out of 2,362 schools) government schools have safe and clean drinking water, while the 1,501 anganwadis, which are supposed to be covered under NRDWP programme, weren’t covered during 2012-17.
The Director, Urban Development Department (UDD) proposed a project for construction of a burial and cremation ground at Kohima at a cost of INR 15 crore under “10 per cent lumpsum provision for development of north eastern states” in 2013 to the ministry of Urban Development, which was approved. The central government had released INR 6.86 crore in two installments for the project and the state government released an amount of INR 2.94 crore as its share to the department but the work was discontinued after spending INR 1.62 crore as the Village Councils objected to it. The department had claimed (August 2017) that an alternate site had been identified and work would soon begin but no evidence was furnished on the same.
