Chandigarh Civic body could have avoided expenditure of Rs 18.38 cr: Audit

Sandeep Rana

Chandigarh, December 21

Audit Department has found that “unfruitful” or “avoidable” expenditure of Rs 18.38 crore was made on three projects carried out by the Municipal Corporation.

According to the audit report, an “unfruitful” expenditure of Rs 6.38 crore with regard to the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system was made. “…it was found that actual consumption shown as per log books was less than that shown by the SCADA data, which clearly showed that SCADA data was not reliable and the sum spent on the agreement was not justified,” the report read.

It further pointed out that an “unfruitful” expenditure of Rs 6.30 crore on account of an agreement on GPS-based wrist watches meant to track employees’ field location was also done. The watches are not used at present as the contract has expired.

“…the MC House had restored the decision for giving salary as per manual attendance instead of linking the salary with GPS data. This showed that the purpose of decision to enter into an agreement with the agency concerned had been defeated and it led to an unfruitful expenditure of Rs 6.30 crore… Also, a huge number of inactive devices further resulted in ineffective tracking of field staff and Rs 19.76 lakh on account of lost watches of the field staff concerned was also not recovered..,” found the audit report.

It also stated “avoidable expenditure” of Rs 5.70 crore on recarpeting of roads was made. A survey was conducted to assess the condition of roads and parking lots under the the MC. Recarpeting work was awarded in September 2022,

A total of 37.15 km of road, out of 56.81 km of road recarpeted by the MC, was checked by the audit team using an Al tool. Of this, 29.94 km of road was found “green” (less than 10 per cent damage) and “yellow” (10-50 per cent damage). Only 7.2 km of road, out of the total road (37.15 km) checked by the audit team, at the back of the Sector 41 market and on Sector 50/51 V3 stretch was in a bad condition and required re-carpeting.

“With 81% of road checked using the Al tool being categorised as ‘green’ that may not require recarpeting, expenditure of about Rs 5.70 crore, out of Rs 7.04 crore, could have been avoided, if reassessed..,” it said.

The report of the last financial year was accessed through an RTI application from the Office of the Principal Director of Audit (Central), Sector 17.

‘81% road didn’t require recarpeting’

“With 81% of road checked using the Al tool coming under the category that may not require recarpeting, expenditure of about Rs 5.70 crore, out of Rs 7.04 crore, could have been avoided, if reassessement was done..,” observes audit report.