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NT Bureau
Chennai, May 16:
 

Principal accountant general, Civil Audit, Shankar Narayan and accountant general, Receipt Audit, S Murugiah at a press conference at the AG Office in Chennai today.

        Though aimed at preventing floods and reducing pollution in channels and lakes, the Chennai Waterways Project was affected by lack of funds and many of the essential works for achieving the objective were left out.

        Also, non-adherence to laid-down specifications led to avoidable expenditure and poor coordination between the implementing agencies which hampered the execution of work. Due to this, there was inundation during flood and sewage was polluting the waterways, even after Rs 621.41 crore was spent on the project so far over seven years. This was the one of the major findings of the audit reports comprising civil department, revenue receipts and commercial audit of the State PSUs presented before the Assembly on the last day (14 May) of its Budget session. Addressing a press conference today, Shankar Narayan, principal accountant general at the Civil Audit, said the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the State legislature would now deliberate on the CAG (comptroller and auditor general) reports pertaining to Civil and Revenue Receipts, while the Committee on Public Undertakings would discuss the report on PSUs.

        Tamilnadu government netted a revenue of Rs 33,960 crore for the year ended 2005-06, thus recording a growth of 19 per cent from 2004-05. The revenue expenditure for the year was Rs 32,009 crore, an increase of 9.8 per cent over the previous year. Consequently, the government had a revenue surplus of Rs 1,951 crore which resulted in the lowering of fiscal deficit. 'With primary surplus, the State government has managed its cash balance by getting lesser 'ways and means' advance from the RBI,' said the CAG report. However, the fiscal liabilities of the government stood at Rs 62,310 crore for 2005-06, which was around 1.83 times the revenue receipts for the year.

        An audit of financial transactions, test checked in various departments and their field offices revealed instances of wasteful expenditure and irregularities amounting to Rs 153.67 crore for the year 2005-06.

        Detailing the CAG report on State PSUs and companies, S Murugiah, accountant general, Commercial and Receipt Audit, said total investment in 53 working PSUs stood at Rs 14,303 crore for 2005-06 (Rs 14,092 crore) and total investment in 14 non-working PSUs was Rs 86.89 crore (Rs 85.83 crore). As on March 2006, the State has 69 PSUs comprising 67 companies, including 14 non-working firms, and two corporations, namely TNEB and TN Warehousing Corporation.

        In a performance review of Tamilnadu Newsprint and Papers Ltd (TNPL), the CAG report said the company's tie-up with nine-sugar mills for the procurement of bagasse had resulted in a loss of Rs 57 crore. 'Though the company fulfilled all contractual obligations, the sugar mills did not supply the entire quantities of bagasse. This resulted in the import of costlier pulp at an expenditure of Rs 57 crore,' the report said.

        As per the custom, the Public Accounts Committee and the Committee on Public Undertakings were expected to deliberate on the findings of the CAG for 2005-06 and then present an Action Taken Report to the government in the next sessions of the Assembly.