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| Regularization of water connections: State suffers loss of Rs 2.7cr | | | Early Times Report
Jammu, Oct 25: While the alleged irregularities in Public Health Engineering (PHE) department exposed chinks in Congress and National Conference (NC) alliance during assembly session, report of Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has further highlighted the loopholes and poor target achievement during 2007-12.
Though 30188 illegal water connections have been regularized so far in the state, after a sustained campaign launched by PHE department, CAG has revealed many loopholes in the conduct of operations against them. It says that shortfall in realization of revenue with reference to budget estimates of water usage and delays in remittance of revenue to government account. 'There was no effective system of recovery of revenue from the consumers, which resulted in increase of upstanding revenue during 2007-12", it says.
As per the report, despite claims of taking action against illegal water connections, nearly 9526 illegal water connections were regularized without imposing any penalty during the period 2007-12, while a meager penalty was imposed on 20662 illegal water connections, leading to the loss of Rs 2.07 crore to exchequer as only Rs 94.78 lakh was recovered from defaulters.
During the year 2011-12 the gap was Rs 709.62 crore as against Rs 399.21 crore during 2007-08. The Government has informed the Legislature through the statements placed under the financial reforms on Budget management act that all departments are expected to recover at least 50 per cent of the service charges as recommended by 13th finance commission.
CAG has recommended an effective monitoring system to recover the water usage charges, against various consumers and government money be deposited in the account. Report says that the gap between Revenue receipts and revenue expenditure on water supply has been growing. Audit has noticed that the department had carried out inadequate inspections of water installations and it was revealed that percentage of inspections ranged between 0.03 to 0.19 per cent of the number of connections in two divisions. |
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