OC wasteful, broke rules: CAG

The Comptroller and Auditor General, in a preliminary report, has accused the Games Organising Committee headed by Suresh Kalmadi of several irregularities in the preparations for the Games, resulting in loss of revenue to the government. Gaurav Choudhury reports. Strong indictment

The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), in a preliminary report, has accused the Games Organising Committee headed by Suresh Kalmadi of several irregularities in the preparations for the Games, resulting in loss of revenue to the government.

The CAG report says rules were broken in the appointments of consultants, undue favours were given while awarding contracts, while the extra expenditure incurred to correct wrongly printed tickets was entirely avoidable.

HT Image

The CAG is auditing Games-related expenditure of as many as 24 government departments — 16 of them with the Delhi government — as part of the multi-agency probe ordered into the preparations for the Games. It has to submit its final report in three months.

The preliminary report has found huge discrepancies in the tendering process and grant of work for the renovation of Indian Olympic Association Bhawan at the Nehru Stadium.

Only two tenders were received, one of which was disqualified on the ground that the "price quotation was not found as per the scope of work."

The entire 20,000 square feet of IOA Bhawan was renovated, although the OC acquired only 6,750 sq ft ( 33.75 per cent) of the total space.

The renovation work was completed in November last year — 20 months behind schedule — but the OC did not claim damages from the contractor for the time over-run.

"The complete renovation of IOA Bhawan by the OC at a cost of Rs 4.11 crore was avoidable," the preliminary report said.

In another instance, the OC selected a consultant for national and international broadcasting sales consultancy without adequate evaluation of the bids.

The consultant did not manage to get the income projected in the agreement, leading to loss of revenue of Rs 24.60 crore.

Among other discrepancies, CAG has also found the OC had not imposed penalty on many contractors, did not recover funds from Games associations after the Commonwealth Youth Games 2008 in Pune.