BENGALURU: The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report on the Yettinahole Integrated Drinking Water Project has revealed that 80 per cent of works were awarded without assessing contractors’ financial capacity, bidding ability, or experience, posing a risk of delays and non-completion.
The report also said that the project aimed to provide drinking water to Kolar and Chikkaballapura districts, has lingered for more than 12 years due to severe deficiencies, including long delays in land acquisition, inordinate delays in construction of Balancing Reservoir, non-synchronisation of Phase-I and Phase-II components and funding uncertainty.
“As a result, despite a very large expenditure of Rs 15,297 crore (as of March 2024), the project’s primary objective of providing drinking water facility to intended beneficiary districts remains unfulfilled,” it said.
The audit report that was tabled in the assembly on Thursday noticed deficiencies in tendering process such as non-adoption of standard tender document, non-assessment of bid capacity of contractors and insufficient bidding time for high value contracts ranging from Rs 87.08 crore to Rs 1,135 crore.
‘None of Detailed Project Reports specified completion timeline’
“Eighty per cent of the works were awarded to the contractors without evaluating the financial capability, bid capacity and work experience. This posed the risk of non-completion of the work on time,“ ‘the report noted. Further, the report noted that 67 per cent of the works of Rs 14,605 crore were awarded to only seven contractors and one contractor was awarded 11 contracts amounting to Rs 5216 crore. “There has been failure of Visveswaraya Jala Nigam Ltd (VJNL) to forfeit the EMD was an undue favour extended to the contractor,” it said.
The audit also flagged instances of undue financial favours to contractors such as non-recovery of excess cost of pipe materials, extra payment for works, premature release of retention money security, irregular advance payments to supply of pipes and other issues.The audit objected to the Yettinahole project’s Detailed Project Report (DPR), which was approved in 2012 and revised in 2014 and 2023.
This increased the cost from Rs 8,323.50 crore to Rs 23,251.66 crore. “None of the DPRs specified a completion timeline, with the government only stating in March 2024 that the project would be completed by November 1, 2026.” The audit warned that delays could affect drinking water supply to Kolar and Chikkaballapura. The report also noted that VJNL used inflated rainfall data from private gauge stations to project water availability, which was higher than data from the government gauges located nearby.
A comparison of flow data from eight weirs (2018-2023) showed lesser availability of water. Also, the balancing reservoir capacity for summer supply to Kolar and Chikkaballapura was reduced from 10 TMC to 2 TMC.
The inaction of government in finalising the proposal for the reservoir has resulted in additional cost of Rs 621 crore for various reasons including change in guidance value to be paid for land acquisition compensation. According to the report, the project suffered from financial constraints as the government provided only 25 per cent to 54 per cent of the budget requirement. The request of VJNL for availing fresh loans required for completing the project was awaiting approval from the government. This has resulted in financial uncertainty regarding availability of Rs 7,954 crore required for completing the project.