Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta is set to table 14 audit reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) in the Assembly session. On Tuesday, the CAG report on Liquor Policy during the Assembly session today. The report flagged financial irregularities in the Excise Supply Chain Information Management System (ESCIMS), stating that an undue benefit of Rs 24.23 crore was given to the implementing agency.
The report — ‘Performance Audit Report on Regulation and Supply of Liquor in Delhi’ — revealed that payments were made for liquor bottles that were not authenticated through barcode scanning at the Point of Sale (POS). According to the report, the implementing agency (IA) got the benefit during the period from December 2013 to November 2022.
While the Delhi government defended the payments, arguing that they were based on “data captured” in the system, the CAG rejected this reasoning. Senior AAP leader and Leader of Opposition in Delhi Assembly Atishi on Tuesday defended the previous government’s now-scrapped excise policy, citing a CAG report to claim that the old policy was marred by corruption and smuggling.
According to a report by the Indian Express, the CAG has submitted a dozen audit reports to the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi in recent years. But the previous AAP government had not laid them in the Assembly, triggering a backlash from the BJP whose MLAs had approached the High Court.
The newly formed government will soon table the audit report on Public Health Infrastructure and Management of Health Services and it exposed various deficiencies in the Mohalla Clinics and AYUSH dispensaries running in the national capital, as well as gross mismanagement during Covid-19.
A report by CNN-News18 revealed that 21 Aam Aadmi Mohalla Clinics did not have toilets, 15 did not have a power backup, six did not have any table for check-up and 12 did not have accessibility for the physically disabled. In AYUSH dispensaries, 17 of the 49 inspected dispensaries had no power backup, seven had no toilets and 14 had no facility for drinking water.
The CAG report has also flagged gross under-utilisation of funds received under the ‘Emergency Covid-19 Response Plan’. It says only Rs. 582.84 crore of the total Rs. 787.91 crore released by the Centre for tackling Covid-19 were utilised by the former Delhi government, CNN-News 18 reported. In a major lapse highlighted by the CAG report, as high as Rs. 83.14 crore of the released Rs. 119.85 crore for drugs and supplies including PPE and masks remained unutilised. Reportedly, these audits by the Comptroller and Auditor General have been pending for nearly 500 days.
Delhi Government hospitals as against the budget announcements in the four budget years from 2016-17 to 2020-21 of adding 32,000 beds, only a miniscule 1357 beds were added. The CAG report says bed occupancy was high ranging from 101 % to 189% in major hospitals, which showed either more than one patients were accommodated on single beds or patients were made to lie on floors, CNN-News 18 reported.
The CAG report has also highlighted that there is a severe shortage of healthcare staff pointing to 8,194 vacancies with the maximum shortages of nurse and paramedic staff at 21% and 38% respectively.
The report says there were long waiting times for surgeries — for example, the Lok Nayak Hospital had 2-3 months of wait for general surgery and 6-8 months for burns/plastic surgery. The Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital (RGSSH) had 6 idle OTs, ICU beds, and a doctors’ hostel that remained unused while at the Janakpuri Super Speciality Hospital (JSSH), 7 modular OTs, CCU beds, and a blood bank were non-functional.
The CAG report also says that out of 27 hospitals in Delhi, ICU services were missing in 14 of them, blood banks were absent in 16, oxygen supply was absent in 8, mortuary services were absent in 15, and ambulance services were absent in 12 hospitals.
The CAG report said many CATS ambulances lacked essential life-saving equipment and hospitals had to buy 33-47% of essential drugs directly due to failure in procurement.
The report said 15 plots worth Rs. 648.05 lakh, acquired between 2007 and 2015 for hospitals, remained unused for up to 15 years. The CAG report has also flagged delays in the execution of new hospital projects, with only three new hospitals being completed after they were started when Sheila Dikshit was the Chief Minister.
According to the CNN-News 18 report, the CAG has highlighted significant delays of up to six years in their completion and ncrease in final costs from the previously tendered costs. This, the BJP said, has highlighted corruption in these works. This CAG report is for the year ended March 31, 2023, and was submitted to the Delhi government on September 24, 2024.
On Tuesday, Kapil Mishra, newly inducted minister in BJP government, said that the CAG reports will expose the Aam Aadmi Party. Last year, Delhi Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena had reprimanded then chief minister Atishi over not presenting CAG reports in the House.