Rs 108 cr diverted from CM’s Nagarothana scheme: CAG

The city corporations of Ballari, Tumakuru and Vijayapura “diverted” Rs 108.75 crore of funds meant for the Chief Minister’s Nagarothana scheme towards other projects in contravention of guidelines, the Comptroller & Auditor General (CAG) has said.

The CAG’s performance audit on the Nagarothana scheme (phase-3) for city corporations was tabled in the Karnataka Assembly on Friday.

The Nagarothana scheme (phase-3) was launched at an estimated cost of Rs 1,000 crore to upgrade infrastructure in 10 city corporations, with each one getting Rs 100 crore. The performance audit covered the period 2014-15 to 2020-21 in Ballari, Mysuru, Tumakuru and Vijayapura.

According to the CAG findings, civic bodies at Ballari, Tumakuru and Vijayapura diverted Rs 108.75 crore towards “paying their contribution amounts for other schemes (AMRUT, Rajiv Gandhi Awas Yojana and 24*7 water supply) or on works being executed under other grants”.

This “deprived the city corporations the full benefit which was to be accrued from the scheme”, the CAG said.

Rejecting the government’s claim that this was not a “diversion” but utilisation of funds towards other schemes, the CAG said, “...scheme guidelines specifically prohibited funding of works taken up under other schemes. Reply was also silent regarding utilisation of scheme funds for ineligible components such as payment of land compensation, construction of building etc.”

‘Undue favour’

The appointment of three project management consultants (PMC) for Belagavi, Davangere, Hubballi-Dharwad, Mysuru, Shivamogga, Tumakuru and Vijayapura was “incorrect”, the CAG said. The “undue favour” led to works worth Rs 14.63 crore being awarded to these “ineligible” consultants, it said.

Civil Technologies India Pvt Ltd, CADD Station Technologies Pvt Ltd and Infra Support Engineering Consultants Pvt Ltd did not meet the selection criteria and “were liable to be rejected”.

The government said that some minor qualification criteria were “relaxed” to “create competitiveness and complete the project within the stipulated time”. The CAG rejected this as “factually incorrect” as the criteria were mandatory.