Kohima, March 27 (PTI): Giving an overview of the functioning of PWD (roads and bridges) in Nagaland, Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has found the absence of long term plan, state action plan and district action plan in the state which resulted into uneven planning and execution of the projects.
In its latest report pertaining to PWD, the apex audit organisation found that the overall increase in road length was only 14.60 per cent and conversion of unsurfaced roads to surfaced ones was only 3.40 per cent during the period from 2003 to 2009 in the state. "Maintenance of records in most of (PWD) divisions was poor and several vital records like register of works, work abstracts, contractors’ ledger, register of measurement books etc were not maintained," CAG report said.
Payments amounting to Rs 10.10 crore were made on the basis of "fictitious measurements" recorded in the measurement books and excess payments of Rs 3.73 crore were made due to duplication of entries for work not actually executed. "These were related to reconstruction of a three km old road from Naga Hospital to Tin Pati junction, Kohima under the state plan," the report said.
The CAG report tabled in the state assembly yesterday said during joint physical verification it was found that the work was not completed in several sections of the road.
The chief engineer, PWD (roads and bridges) stated that "these adjustments" became necessary during actual execution due to "practical difficulties". "However, the fact remains that fabricated or false entries were made in measurement books and payments made on that basis," the report observed.
The CAG report said that there was either non or short realisation of sales tax (VAT) on work contracts amounting to Rs 11.75 crore and delay in deposit of tax amounting Rs 1.48 crore to the exchequer in the 10 test checked (PWD) divisions in the state.
It was found that Rs 1.77 crore and Rs 13.47 crore were drawn from bank account by Dimapur and Longleng (PWD) divisions respectively during 2010-11 without corresponding entries in the cash book, the report said.
The report also found that Grade III and Grade IV staffs were in excess of sanctioned strength, especially in Dimapur (318), Zunheboto (204) and Kohima (South) divisions (183) of PWD.
Over and above this, the department has engaged a large number of work charged (casual) employees, out of which 1,534 were on scale of pay and 5,151 on fixed pay. The expenditure incurred on salary of work charged employees during past three years (2008-09 to 2010-11) stood at Rs 44.98 crore, the report said, maintaining that it was "an avoidable expenditure".
"Unlike its previous reports made public, CAG published coloured phonographs of project executions taken during physical verifications of the same in the latest reports ending March 31, 2011.
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