SHILLONG: The injudicious decision of the Fisheries Department to allot work to Meghalaya Energy Corporation Limited (MeECL) and its failure to monitor work resulted in the failure of the project even after incurring an expenditure of Rs 2.05 crore, a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General reveals.
The report pointed out that the objective of the project to increase production to 50 lakh fingerlings per year by 2012-13 also remained unachieved.
According to the CAG report, the project to upgrade and modernise the Umsning fish seed farm (Phases I and II) under the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) was approved in September 2008, September 2009 and June 2011 by the State Level Sanctioning Committee (SLSC) at a cost of Rs 2.32 crore.
The objective was to increase production of fingerlings to 50 lakh per year by 2012-13 from 30 lakh in 2011-12.
The Fisheries department tasked the Meghalaya State Electricity Board (now renamed as MeECL) with the civil work under the project, which included construction of check-dam, renovation of rearing ponds, nursery ponds and hatchery, among others, scrutiny of records of the Directorate of Fisheries in July-August 2015 revealed.
Accordingly, Rs 2.04 crore was released to MeECL between July 2009 and November 2011 for undertaking the civil work (Rs 1.99 crore) and installation of transformer (Rs 4.57 lakh).
No records were available to indicate that MeECL had the necessary expertise in constructing a fish hatchery farm or that the department was monitoring the progress and quality of work during execution.
By June 2012, MeECL completed the civil works at an expenditure of Rs 2.05 crore, which included agency charges of Rs 18.67 lakh. The CAG report stated that there was no record of MeECL handing over the completed work to the Fisheries department.
In February 2013, the department conducted an inspection and found that all the nine nursery ponds were leaking as MeECL had not sealed the nursery beds since the item was not included in the scope of work.
No record was available to indicate the reason for not including the item in the scope of work.
The work was again inspected by the departmental officers in July and August 2014 and the team found that the nine nursery ponds, the circular breeding pool, the hatchery, the spawn collection chamber, the rearing ponds and stocking ponds were all leaking.
A few concrete tanks had also crumbled due to high percentage of sand in the cement mix. The inspection team concluded that the Umsning fish farm was not functional even after five years. Rather, the poor quality of construction made it imperative to rebuild the fish farm.
Thus even the existing production of fingerlings that the Umsning fish seed farm was achieving (30 lakh during 2011-12) had gone down to zero.
During the inspection conducted in July 2014, the Assistant Director of Fisheries, who led the inspection team, suggested that officers should visit Assam to get an idea of how to construct a hatchery, indicating that the State Fisheries Department lacked experience in constructing hatchery.
The CAG report concluded that by allotting the work to MeECL, which was not an agency specialising in construction of hatcheries, not only the objective of the project to increase production to 50 lakh fish fingerlings per year by 2012-13 remained unachieved but the existing production at the Umsning fish seed farm had come to a halt.