The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (C&AG) has flagged concerns with the poor operational and financial decisions of the Indian railways that have resulted in a financial dent of Rs 500 crore to the exchequer involving a bunch of issues, including non-realisation of revenues, short recovery, wasteful and extra expenditure, loss of revenues, blocking of capital, etc.
Audit
The C&AG’s compliance audit report, which was tabled in Lok Sabha on Monday, has outlined discrepancies in 25 cases across different zonal railways and independent rail projects. In one such observation, the C&AG noted that the northern railway zone did not comply with railway board’s directives to recover license fee at the rate of 6% of land value from five government-aided schools which led to short recovery of licence fee of Rs 148.61 crore.
In another observation, C&AG noted that south eastern railway supplied unfit wagons along with fit wagons to Ultratech Cement siding at Dhutra and Orissa Cement siding at Rajgangpur. “These defective wagons were allowed to run empty along with fit wagons in the outward rakes for different locations. As a result, south eastern railway could not earn potential freight to the tune of Rs 10.25 crore for these defective empty wagons during FY22 and FY23,” it said.
Irregularities
The report has also raised questions on the manufacturing of coaches for Nilgiri Mountain Railway (NMR) by Integral Coach Factory (ICF). “Southern railway planned to replace 28 NMR meter gauge coaches. The ministry of railways advised ICF to design and develop a prototype coach. ICF did not comply with the instructions of ministry of railways in developing a prototype coach which led to creation of ineffective and deficient assets of Rs 27.91 crore as NMR coaches were not put to effective use even after three years of manufacturing,” it said.
C&AG’s observations, which are based on the test audits for a period up to FY23, have highlighted irregularities in awarding of contract by the Northeast Frontier Railway. “In violation of stipulated provisions, northeast frontier railway administration accepted higher rates for procurement of machine crushed track ballast ignoring the last accepted rates prevailing in the same area. This resulted in undue benefit of Rs 9.4 crore to the contractor due to procurement at a higher rate,” the report said.