CAG raps Singareni for ‘extra and avoidable expenditure’

Diversion of NTR canal comes in focus

March 27, 2017 11:51 pm | Updated 11:53 pm IST - HYDERABAD

The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) faulted the Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SSCL) for incurring ₹44.14 crore “extra and avoidable expenditure” on the diversion of the NTR canal under the Jalagam Vengala Rao Open Cast Project (JVR OCP) beyond its requirement.

In its report for the financial year ending March 2016 (2015-2016), which was tabled in the Telangana Legislature on Monday, the public audit agency observed that the estimated cost of the NTR canal diversion from km 8 to km 12.76 was revised several times from 2005 to 2013.

The report pointed out that the increase in the cost of the project/SCCL share was due to merging of the proposed alternate canal to NTR canal with Indirasagar Rudramakota Lift Irrigation Canal (IRLIC), as decided by the then Government of Andhra Pradesh in March 2008, from km 28 to km 56. The length of the diversion was thus increased to 28 km against the required 4.76 km.

(The IRLI project was shelved by the Government of Telangana in 2016 as part of its re-engineering and redesigning of irrigation projects on the grounds that the area of the project head work went to residuary Andhra Pradesh after bifurcation of combined A.P. It also had serious environmental hurdles as the proposed canal was passing through the reserved forest area.)

‘Unjustified payments’

“Since the clubbing of canals was totally unrelated to the SCCL and had no bearing on the original work of diversion of NTR canal, payments made by the company for the additional length was unjustified,” the CAG observed in the audit report.

Besides, the delay on part of the Irrigation Department, which was given ₹48.95 crore interest-free advance by the SCCL for completing the work by March 2011 to enable production from JVR OCP-I expansion mine, also put-off extraction of about 11.05 million tonne of coal from the mine as the work was completed only in April 2016, the report added.

Stating that the company had paid ₹65.83 crore for the work against the required ₹21.69 crore, the CAG felt that the NTR canal diversion would have been completed much earlier as per the original schedule and well within the initial estimated cost of ₹21.69 crore had it not been clubbed with other irrigation work.

Further, the CAG report faulted the SCCL for incurring an “unfruitful expenditure” of ₹1.16 crore towards publication charges by going ahead with the publication of draft notification and draft declaration for the proposed Indaram Open Cast Mine without ensuring the possibility of acquiring private land. The land acquisition, however, was kept in abeyance due to stiff resistance from the villagers concerned.

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