Principal Correspondent
KOHIMA, JULY 28
THE Department diverted Rs. 5 crore sanctioned for construction of 0-11 Km of Botsa to Zeizou road for earth-cutting of remaining 18 Km without completing the sanctioned work after the road was decided to be taken over by Border Road Organisation to be developed as General Staff Road, Further, the department’s failure to handover the road led to construction of road in a different alignment by BRO resulting in further financial burden to the Department on account of maintenance.
Department spent Rs. 41.31 lakh by recording false measurements and certifying completion of an un-executed item of work, which needs further investigation, Union Ministry of Road Transport and National Highways (MoRTH) under the Economic Importance Scheme sanctioned (March 2006) construction of Zero Km to 11 Km of road from Botsa to Zeizou via Seihema at an estimated cost Rs.13.53 crore to be shared in the ratio of 50:50 between the Centre and State Governments.
The above work was a portion of the project with an estimated cost of Rs. 33.36 crore having a total length of 28.5 Km, it said. An amount of Rs.10.66 (GoI-Rs.6.16 crore, GON Rs.4.50 crore) was released against the project upto July 2011.
However, the CAG pointed scrutiny of records (February 2013) of Executive Engineer (EE), Construction Division revealed that the work was awarded (April 2006) to one contractor at an approximate cost of cost of Rs. 12.81 crore with a stipulation to complete the work within 36 months.
The contractor commenced (April 2006) Phase-I of the work and completed metalling work upto Grade-I against which an amount of Rs. 4.88 crore was paid to the contractor in four Running Account Bills (August 2011).
The Department also spent Rs.78.10 lakh for consultancy, contingencies etc, thus, making the total expenditure on Phase-I at Rs.5.66 crore and leaving the balance amount of Rs.5.00 crore with the Department.
While the work was in progress, Ministry of Defence (MoD) included (Jan 2009) the road Botsa-Zeizou-New Ralan-Bokajan of length 60 Km under long term perspective plan to be developed as General Staff road and accorded Priority-I.
Accordingly, MoRTH communicated (Jan 2009) to the Government of Nagaland (GON) to handover the road to Border Road Organisation (BRO) by March 2009.
In September 2009, a joint meeting was held between GON and the BRO where in it was decided handover the road to BRO by April 2010 after all the ongoing construction works. However, the road was not handed over to the BRO (January 2013) by the GON and the BRO has started the work in a different alignment.
Further scrutiny (February 2013) revealed that the EE prepared a working estimate for construction of road (Earthwork/formation cutting without metalling and black topping) from 12 Km to 28.5 Km for Rs. 5.94 crore, which was approved by the Chief Engineer. No approval from the MoRTH or GON was obtained for this work.
The work was subsequently awarded to the same contractor by splitting up the work into two phases, i.e. Phase-II (Work Order Amount Rs.2.89 crore) 12 Km to 22 Km (November 2010) and Phase III (Work Order Amount Rs. 2.11. crore - 22 Km to 28.5 Km (September 2011). The contractor completed the work as per work order and he was paid Rs. 5 crore (Phase II Rs. 2.89 crore and Phase III Rs. 2.11 crore) as of November 2011.
EE also submitted Utilization Certificate for the entire amount of Rs. 10.66 crore sanctioned against Phase-I by GoI & GON stating that the expenditure had been incurred on sanctioned works only.
Thus, the Department diverted Rs. 5 crore sanctioned for Phase-I of the work towards execution of unsactioned portion (phase II & III) of work by leaving the sanctioned work incomplete.
Further, due to not handing over the road to the BRO to be developed as General Staff Road, the responsibility of maintenance of the road remained with the Department leading to further unnecessary financial burden to the GoN.
In reply (July 2013), the EE stated that although sanction was for 11 Km, the contractor was permitted to construct the road upto 29 Km as verbal instruction of higher authority in anticipation of sanction.
EE further stated that while the work was in progress, 4 Km of the road was black topped by other schemes during 2008-09 to improve the road since there was no clear picture as to whether the road would be taken over by BRO.
The EE also stated that fund was not diverted to other road but was utilized for the same road beyond the sanctioned length and admitted that the work of Phase-II and Phase-III was taken up without approval thereby committing procedural lapses. However, no reason was assigned to submission of UC indicating completion of work as per sanction.
The CAG maintained that EE’s reply is not tenable as taking up another portion of work without proper approval was a clear violation of the technical note which stipulated that no work beyond the scope of the sanctioned estimated leading either to increase in the scope of the work or change in specification should be undertaken without obtaining prior written approval of the Ministry.
Further, taking up a portion of an ongoing work awarded to a contractor in another scheme was irregular and duplication of work. The matter was reported to the Government (July 2013), reply had not been received (January 2014), the CAG reported added.
