Water woes in military stations, audit exposes shortfalls and lapses
Many military stations across the country not only received much lesser water supply than the volume they were authorised to get, but there was also a shortfall of funds for the maintenance of water supply infrastructure and lapses in adhering to standards, latest audit reports pertaining to the defence services have revealed.
Audit examination of records for the period from 2018-19 to 2020-21 at 20 selected Garrison Engineers (GEs), under six commands, regarding management and augmentation of water supply revealed that in 15 out of 20 garrisons water supplied to the users was less than that authorised.
“The less supply of water in the said 15 garrisons ranged from 10.13 per cent to 62.97 per cent of the authorised quantity,” the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) observed in a report tabled this month.
To reduce the gap between the demand and supply of water in their respective service areas, 13 GEs had signed memoranda of understanding or agreements with external water supply utilities.
“Analysis of the information on actual water supply by the contracted agencies revealed that 12 out of the 13 garrisons were receiving less than the agreed upon quantity of water from these agencies,” CAG observed.
The Military Engineer Services (MES), which functions under the Engineer-in-Chief at Army Headquarters. is responsible for the construction, operation and maintenance of all defence services installations for the supply of water to users in military stations, cantonment and other defence installations.
The Engineer-in-Chief’s Branch had issued instructions to implement the automation of process supervisory management of the water supply system within the MES, but this had not been implemented by16 GEs.
It was further observed that 14,940.33 lakh gallons of water were lost due to leakage in the period from 2018-19 to 2020-21. The total loss on account of leakage of water calculated on the basis of ‘all-in-cost’ worked out to Rs 11.53 crore.
CAG pointed out that out of 10 projects related to augmentation of water supply under the Annual Major Works Programme (AMWP), which were selected for detailed audit, only four projects were completed whereas one project had yet not started and five projects, which had started, were still to be completed.
Significant lapses such as non-compliance with applicable standards of the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) for quality of drinking water, non-cleaning of overhead tanks and reservoirs at the prescribed frequency and non-functional equipment for water decontamination were also noticed.
CAG also flagged less allotment of funds against demand in the water supply maintenance head during the years 2018-19 to 2020-21 in 18 of the selected GEs, which ranged from 13.80 per cent to 47.67 per cent.
