CAG: consultants selection for beautification project arbitrary

In award of works, there was a wasteful expenditure of over Rs. 100 crore

The Performance Audit Report of the Commonwealth Games 2010, released by the Comptroller and Auditor-General of India on Friday, has indicted Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and the Delhi government for causing losses running into hundreds of crores to the exchequer.

Addressing a press conference here, Deputy CAG Rekha Gupta said: “In our view, the street-scaping and beautification project was ill-conceived and ill-planned, without a broad overarching vision and perspective of how this would impact urban design and development. The project was largely a consultant-driven project, with the selection of consultants being arbitrary and non-transparent, and without any common design guidelines and targeted budgetary estimates.”

Ms. Gupta said, “This resulted in adoption of richer specifications in an arbitrary and inconsistent manner in different packages. We found the average awarded works for street-scaping and beautification works of Rs. 4.8 crore/km to be exorbitant with a total estimated wasteful expenditure of more than Rs. 100 crore.”

The CAG, while acknowledging the “marked improvement in illumination levels of Delhi roads brought about by the implementation of the street lighting project,” however, criticised the decision to use imported luminaries on selected ‘A' category of roads, saying it was “not based on technical parameters.” Noting that this decision was “taken with the active involvement of the CM,” the CAG said it “resulted in avoidable expenditure of more than Rs.30 crore.”

Further, “the procurement price of imported luminaries was far higher than the fair prices.” Also, Ms. Gupta said, “We found restrictive tendering conditions imposed by the Public Works Department, as well as a deficient ‘design-based' tendering approach followed by the New Delhi Municipal Council.”

In a similar vein, the CAG, while acknowledging the improvement brought to the look of Delhi by the consistent implementation of the road signage project, “found that restrictive tendering conditions were imposed, ensuring sharing of signage works between two major sheet manufacturers.” Subsequently, “designs for the signage were also revised, with several extra and substituted items of dubious utility.”

As for the infrastructure projects, Ms. Gupta said: “We reviewed seven key road and flyover projects linked to the Commonwealth Games. Adoption of a higher rate of profit and overhead charges led to higher cost baselines for potential bidders. We also found irregularities in award of some projects, including consideration of a separate letter quoting a lump sum amount and use of correction fluid in tender documents.”

The CAG was critical of the handling of the “project for renovation and restoration of Connaught Place in time for the Games” and said it was “plagued by undue delays.”

“The original estimated cost of Rs. 76 crore went up nearly nine-fold. The NDMC chose not to follow the approach of dividing the project into manageable packages, so organised as to minimise traffic disruption across the whole of CP. Instead, the project was divided into packages spanning the whole of CP, with all activities getting around the same time. Apart from a pilot project, this project remained incomplete till the time of the Games.”

DIKSHIT’S RESPONSE

In her response, Ms. Dikshit said: “The CAG report has been tabled in Parliament. We are yet to get a copy. But we want to assure that when it goes to the Public Accounts Committee, then in accordance with the well-established practice, if our response is sought on any issue, we will cooperate with them fully and completely.”