Early Times Report
Jammu, Oct 11: Estate Department has allegedly spent over Rs 4 crore on non- permissible works, giving damn to the guidelines of the Government of India. Sources told Early Times that the Central Government had released funds in crores for renovation of infrastructure damaged in natural calamity to the State. In one such case, Estate Department spent over Rs 4 Cr on 13 works of renovation of Government residential quarters at Jammu and civil works at Civil Secretariat Jammu. "Although the most of the damage to the State infrastructure was caused in Kashmir region but taking advantage of the situation, the Estate Department spent crores in Jammu Civil Secretariat in contravention of the guidelines," they said further adding that in deviation from Government instructions which stipulated that only those schemes be taken up under Special Plan Assistance which have not been funded from State Disaster Relief Fund /State Plan /Centrally Sponsored Scheme, Flexi funds/ any other source, expenditure of Rs 3 crore was incurred from 2014-2015 out of SPA on restoration/ renovation of 24 residential units at Srinagar despite fact that expenditure of Rs 1 crore had been incurred out of SDRF and State Plan respectively on restoration and renovation of these residential quarters.
They further said that such non permissible expenses were made by the Department in the garb of irrelevant logic of having insufficient funds for the already ongoing works. "The restoration of these quarters were taken up under SDRF/ State Plan but could not be completed due to insufficient funds. As such, pending works of these quarters were taken up under SPA," they added. |
