New Delhi, July 6 (ANI): In a big blow to the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government at the Centre, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India has indicted the Prime Minister's Office and Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit in their report on the irregularities observed in the 2010 Commonwealth Games (CWG).
Citing the exorbitant prices for just the beautification and streets-scaping of roads, Deputy CAG Rekha Gupta on Friday said though the decisions were not taken on the technical parameters, but was in continuous knowledge of the Delhi Chief Minister.
Rekha Gupta said the faulty decision-making resulted in unnecessary avoidable expenditure of around 300 million.
"We found the average awarded works for streetscaping and beautification works of Rs 4.8 crore per kilometer to be exorbitant, with total estimated wasteful expenditure of more than Rs. 100 crore. We acknowledge the marked improvement in illumination levels of Delhi roads brought in by the implementation of the street lighting project," said Gupta.
"However, the decision to use the important luminaries on selected 'A' category of roads was not based on technical parameters, but was taken with the active involvement of the CM (Chief Minister). This resulted in avoidable expenditure of more than rupees 30 crore," she added.
The CAG report on Commonwealth Games has placed Dikshit in the line of fire for bypassing certain prescribed norms concerning contracts related to the preparations of the mega event that was staged in the national capital.
She has been held responsible for causing losses to the national exchequer to the tune of rupees 310 million by deciding to use imported equipments for street lighting installed prior to the games.
Throwing light on the Prime Minister's Office, Gupta said Suresh Kalmadi was made the chairman of the Organising Committee (OC) on PMO recommendation, despite facing severe opposition from former Sports Minister Sunil Dutt.
"Despite strenuous objections from the erstwhile Minister for Youth Affairs and Sports (YAS), Late Sunil Dutt, Kalmadi was appointed as the OC (Oraganising Committee) Chairman, based on a PMO (Prime Minister Office) recommendation of December 2004," said Rekha Gupta.
"Attempts in 2007 by Mani Shankar Aiyar, Minister for Youth Affairs and Sports (MYAS), and late S. K. Arora, Secretary of Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports to the PMO, the group of ministers and cabinet secretariat, highlighting the ineffective position of MYAS in exercising control over the OC, met with strong resistance from the chairman, OC, and were unfruitful," she added.
Gupta said that irregularity in making committees and then disbanding led to the confusion thus further creating a huge money loss.
She said CAG had found clear instances of favouratism and biasness over giving contracts to various parties.
"In the absence of a clear governance structure, a multiplicity of co-ordination committees were created, disbanded and reconstituted at different points of time, which led to complete diffusion of accountability. Although there were some changes in the governance structure of the OC from October 2009 onwards, these actions were largely in the nature of the emergency fire-fighting measures and were not fully effective. Further, GOI (Government of India) did not have a clear and realistic assessment of the estimated cost of hosting the games. The highly limited and unrealistic scope of the original budget envisaged in the May 2003 bid led to the revisions of estimates at very short intervals right up to September 2010," she said.
Gupta accused OC of not keeping track of records thus terming it of highly irregular and deficient.
"The internal control environment and decision-making structures within the OC were highly deficient. The state of documentation in the OC was so inadequate that we are unable to derive assurance as to either the authenticity or the completeness of records. Contract management by the OC was highly irregular and deficient. The processing of the certain sensitive contracts, cases were allocated in an arbitrary and ad hoc manner to certain officials who had no linkages with the concerned functional Area. There were enormous bunching of high value contracts in 2010, particularly in the second and the third quarters. The argument of urgency was used to obviate the regular process of tendering for award of contracts," she said.
Gupta further said revenue neutrality was seriously flawed with total committed revenues showed 6.82 billion, where as net revenue actually realized was 1.73 billion.
"Coming to the revenue generation, the OC consistently presented staging of the games as revenue neutral which was used to justify the independence and financial autonomy of the OC. However, this premise of revenue neutrality was seriously flawed, as it was never supported by robust and appropriately validated revenue projections. Revenue projections were inflated with the objective of keeping pace with the vastly increasing operating expenditure estimates," said Gupta.
"In reality, the total committed revenues amounted to just Rs 682.06 crore and the net revenue actually realized by OC (after deducting revenue generation costs) was just Rs 173.96 crore. OC's performance in revenue generation was consistently poor across all major revenue streams," she added.
CAG also cited numerous deficiencies in the engagement of a multiplicity of agencies for the opening and closing ceremonies along with the major irregularities in the procurement of accessories and props for these ceremonies.
The 19th Commonwealth Games was marred by various charges of corruption, dubious contracts and poor workmanship. (ANI)
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