Part II on CAG , Accountability and Us

Hi All,
Last time I talked briefly about CAG and the revenue earned by MH goverment by Direct taxes.

Now lets review some sad facts where someone else is accountable but responsibility is with us..lets come back to responsibility later

All expenditure is in Cr.
As per section 1.7.1.2 of 2007-08 Audit Report for Incomplete projects
Department : Public Work
Total number of Incomplete Projects/Initial Budgeted cost : 97/ 572.93
No. of incomplete project of which Revised cost available/Initial Budgeted Cost : 9/ 37.49
Revised Cost : 53.04
Cost Escalation : 15.55
Cumulative Actual Expenditure as on 31.3.2008 : 518.06

Looks like little better performance if we dig into cuts :). Now here is something shocking...

Department : Irrigation
Total number of Incomplete Projects/Initial Budgeted cost : 25/ 911.61
No. of incomplete project of which Revised cost available/Initial Budgeted Cost : 23/ 893.80
Revised Cost : 3467.72
Cost Escalation : 2573.92
Cumulative Actual Expenditure as on 31.3.2008 : 5042.21

If you add up both publik work and irrigation department out of 122 projects, 32 projects were re-estimated with total cost escalation to 2589.47 Cr.

This means out orf 47,528.41 Cr. earn by Maharastra Govt in Direct Taxes, 5% of this amount(2589.47) was spent on revised cost and escalation in project cost.

Simply put 5% of our paid tax is unaccounted since there is no break up of project expenditure available. Atleast I could not find it with CAG. May be someone is hiding the files in his locker :)

Person accountableis PWD Minister in 2007.
Person Responsible : US


http://goidirectory.nic.in/maha.htm, today this site is not working :) which is I believe is a link to PWD minister's name.

You must me wondering why I am writing about 07-08, well , tats the speed of audit which CAG can have since its an audit of nation.

Other interesing thing as per Appendix 1.7 of CAG Audit of Maharastra
This is a statement showing excess of expenditure over the projections. I could not find exact break up

Between Revenue, Forest, Public Work and Water Resources the Range of percentage of variation between actual monthly spending and projected to legislature was from 25 to 1794%.

Person accountable : are ministers for these department in 2007.
Person Responsible : US


It will be interesting to see what Mr. Chagal Bhujbal as Public Work,Narayan Rane as Revenue, Dr. Patangrao Kadam as Forest and Ajit Pawar as Water Resource Minister shows in 2009 as expenditure. I could not understand why Mr. Ajit Pawar is not looking after Krishna Valley irrigation company which is excluded from his responsibility. This project is Harnessing the Waters of the Krishna River which involves tunnel construction and contract is given to B. T. Patil & Sons Construction Ltd. Note this name , it will be interesting to find how much cost escalation this project will have.

There is another statement showing department-wise break up of non-submission of accounts which is called Audit Report (Civil) for the year ended 31 March 2008 Appendix 1.9. I am summarizing this here after studying

Department info awaited since
1.Environment 93 to 98 to 03-04 and 07-08
2.Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Protection 94 to 96,98 to 04 and 07-08
3.Home 94 to 03 & 07-08
4.Industries, Energy and Labour 99-04, 06-08
5.Law and Judiciary 99 to 03 and 07-08
6.Medical Education and Drugs 94 to 03 and 07-08
7.Planning 97-98 and 99-2000 to 07-08
8.Tribal Development 91 to 03, and 2007-08
9.Women and Child Development 93 to 06 and 2007-08

Nine service departments of Maharastra have not shown their accounts for almost since years ranging from 91 to 2008

Person accountable : are ministers for these department in 2007.
Person Responsible : US



We are responsible because we did not made any of our minister accountable to show us what is being done by his department. I dont think we have time to ask ourself why?
We are happy to discuss the state of politics over a drink or lunch/tea break , give our greatest opinion on how to improve system , and then go home by shaking head.

If we dont respect money which we earn by working hard, why someone else will respect the usage of it..

If some lawer reads it and advice me how to send show cause notice for above or file a writ petition under the right of information law, I would surely do it..

I planning to take this step as my responsibily..let me know how about you..

Till then,
Chandresh