CWG over, CAG resumes probe into corruption charges

The CAG today sent its inspection officials to the CPWD office located inside S P Mukherjee Stadium to check the accounts related to the Games projects.
The audit work for CWG is related to work payments, contracts and leasing of sports equipment among others.

"We have started with the CPWD office inside the S P Mukherjee Stadium today. Now that the atheletes have vacated the venues, we will gradually start sending our inspection officers to all the stadia," an official with the auditing watchdog said.

The CAG had begun assessing the Games' expenditure in August, but had to stop the audit related works in the last week of September as they could not access the premises of the Central Public Works Department (CPWD).

The official said the CAG had to suspend the audit works for over a fortnight since most of the CPWD offices are located inside the venues which had the athletes till yesterday.
The official said the biggest venue, the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, is yet to be inspected by the CAG and the government auditor would soon send its inspectors there.

The statutory auditor expects to submit the final report to the government by January-end, to be presented in the Budget session of Parliament in February.
Over 7,000 athletes and other staff from 71 nations participated in the 12-day CWG which ended yesterday.

In August last year, the CAG had submitted an evaluation report to the Prime Minister's Office and the sports ministry pointing out the slow pace of progress of all the projects connected with the Games.

The CAG study last year had also highlighted that all the projects would struggle to finish on time.

As per international guidelines, all CWG projects were to be completed by May 2009 and the last year should have been kept for trial runs.

However, after the award of Games-related work to India in 2003, no activity was undertaken till 2006.

The CAG audit would look into how the balance between the cost and quality has been maintained and whether there has been any cost overrun.