CAG warns Road Ministry for lack of monitoring, expenditure control

14 Aug 2013 Evaluate

The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), the government auditor, has warned the ministry of road transport and highways for lack of monitoring and expenditure control and said that during the years 2009-12, though supplementary grants were obtained in anticipation of higher expenditure but the total expenditure was less than even the original grants.

As per the CAG report, in the year 2009-10, the original provision was of Rs 1,460 crore alongwith the supplementary grant of Rs 156 crore, but the total expenditure was Rs 1,304.26 crore. Further,  in the year 2011-12, original provision for NHAI was Rs 10,342.89 crore, and supplementary grant was Rs 731.37 crore, while, the road ministry spent 8,879.89 crore. The entire supplementary grant remained unspent which as per CAG showed lack of monitoring and expenditure control.

CAG report stressed that road ministry received large supplementary grants indicating that it did not prepare original estimates of expenditure on a realistic basis. Further, the report added that earlier in March, the Ministry of Finance has restricted the expenditure by ministries, contrary to this, a huge expenditure was made in the month of March. An expenditure of Rs 8,632 crore was incurred on March 31, 2012, it added.

The performance in road development has remained much below the target over the past few years. Previous year Road ministry had set an ambitious target of awarding 8,800 km of road length in fiscal 2013, however, it was able to award only 1,112 km projects. For this fiscal, the road ministry has set a target of awarding 9,000 km projects, about 50% through the EPC (engineering procurement and construction) route.

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