BHUBANESWAR: The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India has pulled up the Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) for its futile expenditure of Rs 2.62 crore during 2014-17. “The VFS Global Services Ltd (VFSGSL), an outsourcing agency, did not develop IT solutions for complete automation of building plan approval as per terms of the contract.Despite such breach in contract, the BDA neither terminated the contract nor did it forfeit the outstanding dues of the firm resulting in infructuous expenditure of Rs 2.62 crore,” stated the CAG in its General and Social Sector report for the year ending 2019 released recently.
The VFSGSL had entered into contract with the BDA in November 2014 to undertake the job of streamlining the system of issuing building plan approval, issuance of occupancy certificates, procedures for allotment of assets and other citizen centric services through IT-based platforms.
Though the contract had allowed the firm to render the services in manual mode only during the first three months and through IT tools thereafter, the work in the manual mode continued throughout the contract period till August 2017. What surprised the CAG was that the BDA officials, who were processing the building plan applications manually, continued the same even after the engagement of the firm leading to ‘unjustifiable’ expenditure.
Most importantly, the BDA, despite having a right to forfeit all outstanding payments and terminate the contract, continued to make payments to the firm that rendered the expenditure infructuous, the CAG underlined.