IMPHAL, July 8: A sum of Rs. 50 Lakhs appears to have been paid fraudulently to two contractors purportedly for hiring of machinery for canal works, the Comptroller and Auditor General, CAG, report released today said.
After scrutinizing the records (February 2009) of the Khuga Canal Division No.I, IFCD revealed that a decision was taken on May 2007 to discontinue the contracts for canal works due to slow progress of work and to take it up departmentally, it said.
For the same, construction machinery was hired from private agencies @ Rs.11,400 (D-50 Bull Dozer), Rs.6,900 (JCB) and Rs.3,551 ( Tipper truck) per day. Following the same, the Department had issued a work order on August 2007 to a local contractor for hiring the machinery for the canal work between Reduced Datum (RD) of 14,835m to 19,574m on the right side of the canal.
However as per the audit report prepared by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, the receipts issued by the Executive Engineer on December 2007 did not match the details as the hand receipts did not specify any references to measurement book (MB) nor did the details of the work or the quantum of machinery used for the aforesaid work. It has also been found that the Executive Engineer released Rs. 25 Lakhs (twenty five) to the contractor on a hand receipt for hiring machinery used for the above work.
As per the audit report, while analyzing the reply of the Agriculture Department, it revealed that while the bill included two machinery that were included in the work order, no justification was made as to how the contractor was allowed to deviate from the work order. Following the Bill dated December 2, 2007, it has been proven that the contract was completed in 116 days when the bill states that the machinery was claimed for 135/280 days. It has also further revealed that no output analysis has been made for any of the machinery hired by the department to justify the amount claimed by the contractors and as per the work specification and department noting, road rollers which were required were not put to use or hired during the said execution of the canal work.
On further inspection, the Departments reply of awarding the work order to two contractors in two different stretches is not correct as the records produced during audit shows that the work order that was given to Contractor B is from RD 14,835m to 19,475m which does not tally with the bills produced resulting in a fraudulent payment of Rs.50 Lakhs given to contractors on hand receipts for machinery that were not hired.(IFP)
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