By Our Correspondent in Bhubaneswar, February 12, 2015 :

Odisha government once again has come for a rap from the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) for failing to plan, develop, utilise and manage water resources properly.

The CAG’s performance audit conducted by for the period 2009-14 has revealed too many snags in the implementation of vital projects by the Water and Resources Department.

The department implements irrigation projects with funds provided by Government of India (GoI) and state government. The GoI launched Accelerated Irrigation Benefit Programme (AIBP) in 1996-97 to accelerate implementation of large irrigation projects which are beyond resource capability of state government and expeditious completion of projects which were in advanced stage of completion.

“Performance Audit revealed that despite being pointed out earlier, projects still suffered time and cost overrun due to delay in acquisition of land, finalisation of drawing and design and clearance of project site etc. With escalating expenditure on projects, proportion of benefits likely to accrue declined and some projects ran the risk of becoming unviable. Instances of calculation of Benefit Cost Ratios (BCRs) not holding good were also noticed,” the report tabled in the State Assembly on Thursday said.

Implementation of AIBP funded irrigation project was last reviewed by Audit and findings included in the Report of Comptroller and Auditor General for the years ended March 2003 and March 2009.

Persistent deficiencies pointed out in earlier Audit Reports prompted Performance Audit (May to July 2014) covering eight major/medium and 13 minor irrigation projects (MIPs). Broad objectives of audit were to assess effectiveness of planning process, financial management and execution of projects as per programme guidelines, manual provisions and approved Schedule of Rates (SoR).

It added that extra expenditure on account of estimates deviating from SoR, deficiencies in tendering process was noticed. Monitoring and internal control needed improvement. Financial implication by way of cost escalation and other deficiencies worked out to Rs 3,157.97 crore. As a result of delay in completion of projects, people of the state were deprived of assured irrigation facility to that extent,” the report said.

Similarly, the Environment Audit on air and water pollution in the state conducted by the CAG during 2009-14 revealed that Comprehensive Environmental Pollution Index scores remained at critical level at Angul-Talcher, Ib-Valley and Jharsuguda. Operation of Stone Crusher Units without Consent to Establish (CTE)/ Consent to Operate (CTO), delay in upgradation of Pollution Control Equipment (PCE) by Thermal Power Plants (TPPs) to achieve the desired stack emission norm were observed. State Transport Authority also failed to check vehicular pollution in the state.

“There were deficiencies in monitoring of water quality. Untreated sewage of Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) of state were being discharged to nearby water bodies accompanied with untreated effluents of industrial units due to absence of effluent treatment plants (ETPs).

“Water samples of three tributaries of Mahanadi near Cuttack and Bhubaneswar were checked in State Pollution Control Board (SPCB) laboratory and showed non compliance to norms in respect of Bio-chemical Oxygen Demand (BOD), Dissolved Oxygen (DO) and Total Coliform (TC). This apart, relaxation of norms in consent administration, non implementation of Continuous Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Stations (CAAQMS) and Online Emission Monitoring Systems (OEMS) indicated areas for improvement by SPCB. Besides, absence of complete database of all sources of pollution, their timely monitoring and issue of conditional consents have resulted in need to put in far more concerted efforts,” the report said.