SHILLONG: The CAG report tabled on Monday revealed that arbitrary actions of PWD in execution of works for Nongstoin and Nongpoh jails contrary to the State financial rules and exorbitant delay at every stage resulted in an unfruitful expenditure of Rs 8.40 crore.
It may be mentioned that the PWD was to construct both the jails by 2006-07 for which 12.12 crore was released to the department.
However, the test check in June and October 2012 of records of Director General of Prisons and Executive Engineer PWD Building Division revealed that both the jails were not completed till March 2013
According to report, none of the revised estimates has been sanctioned by the Meghalaya Government for both the jails and Director General of Prisons had stated that due to price escalation, the amount released by the Government was not enough for completion of the jails
On the other hand, the Executive Engineer of Shillong Building Division stated that the delay in the completion of the jails was due to non sanction of revised estimate by State Government.
However, the replies are not acceptable to CAG because timely action was not initiated by the executing department to ascertain the actual cost of the jails through preparation of a detailed estimate which led to further escalation in the cost of the works. “Consequently these jails remained incomplete even after six years of the scheduled target of 2006-07 rendering the expenditure of Rs 8.40 crore unfruitful besides frustrating the intended objective”. The CAG says that since the scheme under which construction of both the jails sanctioned by Union Government had been closed in 2008-09, the possibility of completion of these jails in near future is remote due to resource crunch.
