Bhubaneswar, March 26: Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik’s water resources department has drawn flak from the comptroller and auditor general (CAG).
The CAG has criticised the department for non-implementation of various irrigation projects. Work taken up under the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard)-assisted irrigation and flood control projects was also not satisfactory.
The CAG, in its reports placed in the Assembly, said the water resources department did not have any streamlined procedure for identification, prioritisation and selection of projects for loan assistance under Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF). “There is no master plan for flood control and management,” the CAG said, adding that the selection of projects without ensuring their preparedness for the implementation led to the delay.
The targets of creating irrigation potential for 6,496 hectares of agricultural land and stabilisation of 2,091 hectares of irrigable land could not be achieved.
Besides, the expenditure of Rs 2.64 crore incurred on preliminary works of these projects was rendered wasteful. Work on 38 sanctioned projects did not commence and these also involved wasteful expenditure, the CAG said.
It further said that the selection of projects without comprehensive study of technical, economic, financial, organisational aspects and preparedness for their implementation led to only 15 per cent of projects being completed. Of the 265 projects, only 41 were completed by March 2012.
The report pointed out that 83 projects were dropped midway or had not begun as of March 2012. As many as 141 projects were in progress with expenditure of Rs 241.32 crore. Similarly, of 55 cases put to tender for Rs 66.43 crore, 14 bids for Rs 4.47 crore were finalised within the validity period of 90 days and the remaining 41 bids for Rs 61.96 crore were finalised with delays ranging between 31 and 353 days.
The chief engineers of the department surrendered Rs 142.76 crore and could spend only 33 per cent of the sanctioned loan because of the delay in acquisition of land and finalisation of ayacut (area covered under irrigation) planning.
Only 19 per cent of the envisaged irrigation potential was created. There has been no system for independent assessment of the quality and quantity of work by the third party. Out of 92 flood control projects sanctioned, the CAG examined 22 projects and found out that no master plan was prepared. Projects sanctioned by Nabard as single package were implemented without authorisation. The tenders were split to facilitate its finalisation at lower levels to avoid combined evaluation of the capacity of bidders.
