The comptroller and auditor general (CAG) of India has slammed the Haryana public health engineering department for incurring a wasteful expenditure of Rs 4.21 crore on the installation of water purification plants in villages that already have safe drinking water.
The CAG report, which was tabled in the Haryana Vidhan Sabha on Thursday, said that the PHE department had selected 34 villages, which were being supplied potable water, for the installation of water purification plants but lack of proper response from the villagers in availing of the facility of purified water rendered the expenditure of Rs 4.21 crore incurred wasteful.
The state government had sanctioned a project based on reverse osmosis and related technology for 100 villages at a cost of Rs 11.25 crore in July 2008. But an audit from September 2010 to January 2011 found that in 13 villages of Kaithal, four in Jhajjar and 17 in Bahadurgarh, the plants were installed where tubewell-based water supply had already been replaced with canal supply.
While sufficient quantity of safe drinking water ranging from 40 to 70 litres per capita per day was being supplied to these villages, even after the installation of the plants, very few villages had used the water from them, the CAG report held.
{{/usCountry}}While sufficient quantity of safe drinking water ranging from 40 to 70 litres per capita per day was being supplied to these villages, even after the installation of the plants, very few villages had used the water from them, the CAG report held.
{{/usCountry}}The report said that on being pointed out, the executive engineer, PHE, Kaithal and Jhajjar intimated in March and May 2011 that these plants had been installed due to non-availability of water during summer.