PSUs face the music

Annual audit CAG report shows how state-run undertakings wasted public money.

An audit of 80 public sector undertakings (PSUs) has shown how careless they have been with public money.

HT Image

The report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) for the year ending 2008 was released on Thursday. The CAG has found out that the MSRDC suffered losses of Rs 21.31 crore and lost a further Rs 9 crore due to incorrect calculations and defective contract clauses.

“The company suffered a loss of Rs 21.31 crore due to adoption of lower traffic growth rate [for Mumbai], incorrect toll rates and incorrect working of net present value of the toll price,” said the CAG report.

Public Works Department Minister Jaydutt Kshirsagar declined to comment. “I can’t make an off-hand comment on this issue,” he said. The report was tabled in the state Legislative Assembly yesterday.

The CAG report also highlighted how the Shivshahi Punarvasan Prakalp Limited (SPPL), floated during the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party regime to provide shelter to economically weaker sections, has extended benefits worth Rs 21.44 crore to contractors as bonuses.

The company has, since its inception in 1998-1999, only taken up 10 slum rehabilitation schemes of which three are still incomplete. “In our scope of study we have not found any significant increase in the scope of activity of the company.

The government needs to take a consider decision on the existence of the company,” Accountant General (Commercial) Sayantani Jafa said about the SSPL.

The CAG has also found operational faults with the Maharashtra State Police Hous-ing and Welfare Corporation Ltd.

The CAG found instances of diversion of funds and unnecessary expenditure due to inordinate delay in issue of work orders among other anomalies.

The corporation, formed in 1974 to construct houses and administrative buildings and execute welfare schemes for police and jail personnel, did not utilise funds of Rs 100.27 crore received for 33 works.