RWS suffered due to unregulated extraction of ground water:CAG

CAG today slammed implementation of Rural Water Supply schemes implemented by the Puducherry government to provide safe and clean drinking water to rural population, saying it suffered due to unregulated extraction of ground water and non-adoption of supply norms.
The report for the year ended March 31, 2013 was placed on the table of the House today by Chief Minister N Rangasamy.
"Designing of schemes deviating from the norms prescribed by Central Public Health and Environmental Engineering Organisation resulted in avoidable extra expenditure", the CAG said.
Water charges levied were not sufficient to meet the Operation and Maintenance expenses as envisaged in the National Water Policy and there was also huge arrear in collection of water consumption charges, the report said.

It said calling for tenders by the Information and Publicity Department for procurement and supply of colour television sets to households free of cost without finalising the basic parameters resulted in non-implementation of the scheme, leading to wasteful expenditure of Rs 40.13 lakh towards advertisement of tenders.
It also said that an audit of Public Private partnership of development of Karaikal port revealed that Puducherry government issued Expression of Interest for port development without specifying pre-qualification criteria for selection.
The monitoring system was weak due to failures of the administration in appointing a director to the Board of Directors of the Port, non-engagement of an independent engineer, non-constitution of separate bodies for the monitoring of the project, irregularity in operation of escrow account and non-conducting of annual physical verification.

The Report said that as of March 31, 2013 the Union Territory government invested Rs 960 crore in government companies and co-operative institutions. Though the average rate of interest on territorial government's borrowings were eight percent the average rate of return on investment was only 0.4 percent during 2008-2013.