Congress’s Adhir presents PAC report, asks to reign in contractors  

Congress MP Adhir Ranjan Choudhury, who is the Chairperson of the Public Accounts Committee presented the fourteenth report of the Public Accounts Committee (17th Lok Sabha) on "Accelerated Irrigation Benefits Programme" (AIBP) to the Speaker, where it has made an array of recommendations and observations, some of which are critical of the Centre.

It has asked that the concerned Ministry undertake an exercise to comprehensively revise the guidelines for inclusion of a project under the AIBP taking all the state governments and other stakeholders into confidence

The Committee has also recommended that deficiencies in preparation and processing of Detailed Project Reports (DPR) be immediately redressed. It has also recommended that action must be taken against those directly or indirectly redressed. It also recommended that action must be taken against those directly or indirectly responsible for wastage of public money, especially in cases such as the Rongai Valley Project. The Committee went a step further to recommend for an audit of the Major Medium Irrigation (MMI) projects amounting to approximately Rs 10,000 crores.

The Adhir Ranjan Choudhury-led committee emphasised that adopting a uniform parameter for calculation of Benefit Cost ratio will ensure that the Ministry is able to judge the outcome of the project more effectively.

In a significant observation, it criticised the Centre too. "The Committee have also noted the failure of the government to obtain the response from the state government of Uttar Pradesh on the suspected irregular expenditure of Rupees 1.47 crores and the failure of the government to recover a suspected irregular payment of Rupees 2.63 crores in case of concerning Karnataka Government. The Committee has recommended the Ministry to pursue such cases vigorously to its logical end," a government statement reads.

The Committee has also stressed that the Ministry should not refrain from invoking provisions for converting grants into loans, especially in cases of extreme delays beyond a reasonable period of time.

In another important suggestion, it advised that the government may form a separate Cell to examine all cases of undue benefits to contractors beginning with excess payments made and strive to recover the public money spent unfruitfully.

The Committee has also recommended that the Ministry increase their efforts to facilitate formation of Water Users Associations in each State and UTs of India.