The construction of a restaurant near Hathnikund barrage rest house in Yamunanagar without a prior firm plan of its utilisation and lack of consultation with tourism department led to an unfruitful expenditure of ₹1.74 crore.
Pointing this out, the comptroller and auditor general (CAG) in a compliance audit report said the intended benefits from the investment could not be derived due to poor planning.
The CAG recommended that the irrigation department should ensure that a feasibility study should be conducted before taking up such projects in the future. The state government should take effective steps to lease out the restaurant and ensure that the tourism hub is functional at the earliest, the audit said.
The audit report said that for developing the Hathnikund barrage as a tourist hub, the Haryana Irrigation department had in February 2016 approved the renovation and beautification of a park near the barrage. This included construction of a restaurant as well as a children’s park, open platform, food kiosk, open air theatre-cum-performance platform, rain shower point, etc.
Yamuna Water Services (N), Panchkula chief engineer had in December 2017 approved an estimate amounting to ₹1.42 crore for the construction of restaurant near the barrage rest house on Jagadhri- Paonta Sahib road which was revised to ₹1.57 crore in January 2021. After the bidding process, the work was awarded in 2018 to an agency for an agreement amount of ₹1.60 crore with a completion time limit of seven months. The agency in February 2020 completed the work with ex-post facto time extension for an amount of ₹1.54 crore.
{{/usCountry}}Yamuna Water Services (N), Panchkula chief engineer had in December 2017 approved an estimate amounting to ₹1.42 crore for the construction of restaurant near the barrage rest house on Jagadhri- Paonta Sahib road which was revised to ₹1.57 crore in January 2021. After the bidding process, the work was awarded in 2018 to an agency for an agreement amount of ₹1.60 crore with a completion time limit of seven months. The agency in February 2020 completed the work with ex-post facto time extension for an amount of ₹1.54 crore.
{{/usCountry}}The CAG said that the scrutiny of records revealed that after a delay of approximately 21 months, the department in November and December 2021 twice invited tenders to lease out the restaurant at a minimum reserve price of ₹1 lakh per month and security deposit of ₹25 lakh but no bidders came forward. After non-participation of any agency in the e-auction process, the executive engineer submitted a proposal in March 2022 for relaxation in the terms and conditions of the detailed notice for inviting tenders (DNIT) quoting minimum reserve price as ₹50,000 per month and a security amount of ₹10 lakh. The irrigation department then in March 2022 requested the tourism department to take over the work of leasing out the restaurant with the same terms and conditions on which tenders were previously issued. Meetings between the two departments were conducted in March and April 2022 to resolve the issue of leasing out the restaurant. On behalf of the tourism department, Haryana tourism corporation agreed in August 2022 to take over the work for leasing out of the restaurant at the barrage once the adventure activities started at the site, anticipating better participation of bidders for the restaurant.
As per tourism policy of the state government, the irrigation department was required to ab initio involve the former to implement the project which was done 46 months after the start of the project and 25 months after construction of the restaurant. Audit also observed that an expenditure of ₹20 lakh had been incurred from February 2020 to July 2022 on the watch and ward of the restaurant. On being enquired, the tourism corporation confirmed in January 2023 that the irrigation department did not consult the corporation before taking up the project.
Further, the tourism corporation intimated that before conducting the feasibility study for the assessment of the viability of licensing out of the restaurant to a private vendor, the process to license out adventure and water sport activities at the barrage would be done.
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The tourism corporation floated a tender to license out adventure/water sport activities at barrage in August 2022 but did not receive any bid for the same and a revised tender was prepared. The irrigation department engineer-in-chief in May 2023 said that the work of construction of the restaurant was completed in February 2020. However, the matter to lease out the restaurant was still under process with the tourism department. On further enquiry in September 2024 about the updated status, water services division, Jagadhri executive engineer intimated that the restaurant/bar was still to be leased out. The matter was in February 2023 referred to the government for their comments. The comments are awaited.