The ambitious project for renovation and restoration of the central business district of Connaught Place was “plagued by undue delays” and had huge cost overruns, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India has said in a Performance Audit Report on the Commonwealth Games-2010.
The CAG report said the original estimated cost of Rs.76 crore (May 2005) went up nearly nine-fold to Rs. 671 crore by July 2007, with a huge increase in the scope of work. “In our opinion, it is likely that this increase in scope and cost was driven, at least partly, by the launch of the Jawarharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission by Government of India in November 2005 and the subsequent inclusion of this project under JNNURM,” the CAG noted.
It further stated that the approved detailed project report was submitted only in February 2008, and it was, therefore, unreasonable to expect that the project could have been completed in time for the Games, especially in view of the constraints of traffic management and considering the importance of Connaught Place to Delhi's traffic.
Unmanageable
It has criticised the New Delhi Municipal Council for not dividing the project of restoration into manageable packages, and has concluded that there are “significant deficiencies in contract management, with consequent avoidable expenditure”.
“In our opinion, the NDMC should have divided this project into manageable packages, so organised as to minimise traffic disruption across the whole of Connaught Place and then taken up only those project components, which could have been completed by June 2010 (before the onset of the monsoon),” the CAG noted.
Under JNNURM, 35 per cent of the cost would be funded by Union Government and 65 per cent would be funded directly or indirectly met by the Delhi Government, till December 2010, out of total expenditure of Rs.163 crore on the project, Rs 22.21 crore was met from JNNURM funds, Rs 37.86 crore from Delhi Government funds, and the remaining amount of Rs.102.93 crore out of the NDMC funds (to be reimbursed subsequently by the Delhi Government).
On the issue of traffic management, the CAG pointed out that the proposal to have a 24 X 7 schedule of construction work in Connaught Place was completely “impracticable” and the NDMC's response that the execution of work was delayed on account of non-receipt of clearance from the traffic authorities was “illogical”.
The CAG also pointed out to deficiencies in contract management. It said granite was used as flooring material in the pilot project for ‘C' Block contrary to the initial Delhi Urban Arts Commission approval of November 2006. Later, after inspection, the DUAC ordered sandblasting of granite flooring in November 2008 to reduce the colour contrast, this resulted in avoidable expenditure of Rs.0.19 crore.
Further, the report says: “We also noticed award of work of polymer concrete drain costing Rs.2.44 crore along the circumference of the Central Park. In our opinion, the expenditure is unnecessary due to the existing road side drains. Further, our inspection revealed choking of polymer drain in some places with mud due to its narrow width.”
The CAG report concluded that the project for renovation and restoration of Connaught Place is “nowhere near completion, given the difficulties of traffic management and ill-conceived planning. We find it difficult to assess the timeline by which this project is likely to be completed to provide necessary benefits to the citizens of Delhi.”
