“Infructuous expenditure” totalling to Rs 445 crore have been incurred after the present management of the Ahmedabad metro rail project redrew the metro routes after scrapping the earlier phase in 2013, a report from the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) tabled in the Gujarat Assembly Thursday stated.
The Metro Link Express for Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad Company (MEGA) incurred an expenditure of Rs 445 crore towards alignment and planning expenditure, construction of depots and bridges, casting yard, rolling stock, protection wall and survey and data collection for the old phase-I which was subsequently scrapped due to non-receipt of approvals from Government of India and Government of Gujarat, CAG stated in its report on public-sector undertakings.
“Even before the DPR was prepared (August 2012) and approved by the Board of Directors, the MEGA company had started issuing purchase/work orders from June 2011. A total of 1868 orders were issued between June 2011-September 2013, at a cost of Rs 583 crore.. For this phase, the Government of Gujarat infused (May 2011-March 2014), share capital of Rs 1100 crore in MEGA and the company further arranged a loan of Rs 466 crore from Vijaya Bank, Punjab National Bank and United Bank of India in March and June 2013,” the report stated about a period when ex-IAS officer Sanjay Gupta was heading MEGA. Gupta is currently being probed for his alleged involvement in the financial irregularities after the company filed an FIR in December 2014 against few of the company officials.
“The above works were stopped in September 2013 as a consequence of the change in routes and the company had incurred expenditure of Rs 445 crore till March 2015 on the above abandoned phase,” it added.
