The Comptroller and Auditor-General (CAG) of India has not only detected glaring instances of embezzlements of the government fund but also exposed unholy nexus of ministers and contractors that swindled more than `5.24 crores in the name of constructing the Guwahati Central Jail.
Referring the injudicious decision of the home department, the CAG report prepared in 2010 on internal control and risk management, said, “The scrutiny of the records revealed that a meeting was held on November 9, 2006, at the official residence of minister for jail and social welfare where in it was decided to handover the remaining construction work of the Guwahati central jail, being constructed by PWD, to the APHC Ltd.”
The decision was taken for expeditious execution with a condition that work would be done by the same contractors to whom these works had been allotted by PWD without any alteration in the tendered values and terms and conditions. Accordingly in December 2006 home department entrusted all the works, which had not started by PWD, to APHC Ltd with instruction to complete the work by March 2007.
The CAG further found that APHC Ltd instead of completing the work within stipulated time, submitted a revised estimate for `22.51 crores in August 2008, incorporating 10 per cent agency charge, three per cent contingency charge and two per cent work charge to the home department for Phase I of the work.
Though for the same work, the estimate of PWD was `13.53 crores. In what raises serious doubt over the role of the home department, it accorded approval to the revised estimate for `19.5 crores in November 2008 by allowing the agency charge of five per cent of `88.85 lakh and one per cent contingency charges of `17.77 lakh.
Ironically the construction work of central jail, which was scheduled to be completed by March 2007 is yet to complete in 2010 while contractors of APHC Ltd suspected to have strong nexus in the home department were allowed to get away with the `5.24 crores of cost being escalated through revised estimate besides `64.48 lakh of agency charges.