AGARTALA, January 22 (TIWN): Comptroller and Auditor General of India in its latest report slam Tripura government for siphoning of public fund in the name of construction.

The report observed that the state PWD department has awarded of works for construction of bridges in violation of the decision of the Council of Ministers to the inexperienced and unqualified agencies at higher rates.

Moreover, it has incurred an unauthorized and irregular expenditure of Rs. 3.57 crore. Also it rendered the expenditure of Rs. 7.93 crore on six suspended works idle for 12 to 36 months which, in turn, resulted in failure in achieving the objective of speedy and smooth implementation of infrastructural development projects in the state.                                                    

According to the Comptroller and Auditor General of India based on the decision of the Cabinet (June 2008) on a proposal of the Public Works Department to award infrastructure development projects to Central and State Publics Sector Undertakings (PSUs)/Private sector Construction agencies (Agencies) at cost plus basis (Limited upto 10 per cent of the estimated cost based on the current State Schedule of Rates), the Department invited (July 2008) Expression of Interest (EOI) from PSUs and agencies with a view to short-listing on the basis, inter alia, of evaluation of their technical and financial capabilities, and then asking the short-listed bidders for offering financial bids for a few specific packages of works and awarding the works/packages to the lowest bidder on cost plus percentage basis.

Scrutiny of records (March-April 2013) of the Executive Engineer, PWD (R and B), Bishalgarh Division and information/documents collected from Chief Engineer, PWD (R and B) revealed that though the Department invited EOI separately from the PSUs and the agencies on the same date (30 July 2008) with the same opening date (21 August 2008), the financial bids from PSUs and agencies were invited and opened on different dates ( 11 and 22 September 2008; 24 September and 17 October 2008). Thus, the rates of PSUs were already known to all much before the bids of agencies were opened and hence, the risk of influencing their financial bids could not be ruled out. This was also reflected from the fact that the lowest offer of the PSU for Bridge projects was 49 per cent above cost, whereas the same stood at cost plus 48 per cent for the agencies. It was seen that two Kolkata based agencies-Ramky Insfrastructure Ltd. and Coal Mines Associated Traders (‘A’ and ‘B’) were awarded (January 2009) with the work for Bridge Project Package No.-1 (comprising 12 bridges) – six bridge projects each at 48 per cent above the estimated cost. The action of the department was clearly in violation of the cabinet approval that allowed the department to ward the works at cost plus percentage to be limited upto 10 per cent of the estimated cost.

While according approval to the rates of 48 per cent above the estimated cost, the Chief Secretary had also observed (December 2008) that council of ministers be briefed accordingly by the principal secretary (PWD). However, when the principal secretary, PWD was asked (August 2012) as to how the works were awarded at the rates much higher than the rates approved by the cabinet and whether the approval of the cabinet was taken before issuing work orders, the Chief Engineer not only stated (October 2012) that the works were in no way to be treated as ‘cost plus’, but also rejected the vey basis of 10 per cent over TSR 2008 stating that the same was unreasonable.