BHUBANESWAR: The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report has exposed the financial mismanagement by East Coast Railways (ECoR) resulting in a loss of Rs 162.5 crore due to non-levy of shunting charges, irregular booking of rakes and undue favour to a cleaning agency.
The report revealed that ECoR lost around Rs 149.12 crore between 2018 and 2022 due to non-levy of charges for shunting activity by using railway engines. The Ministry of Railways (MoR)’s rate circular of 2009 stipulates that shunting charges are leviable for utilisation of railway locomotives to perform shunting operation at a siding.
As per the scrutiny of records in March 2022, 22,964 rakes were unloaded in the Paradip Port Trust siding (siding code PPAP) by utilising railway locomotives during March 2018-March 2022. Although utilisation of railway locomotives for unloading operation at PPAP, which is a non engine-on-load (EOL) siding, attracts shunting charges, ECoR did not raise any bills against the siding owners.
Only EOL sidings are allowed to utilise the train engine for loading/unloading within the prescribed free time without paying any additional charges. “This resulted in loss of Rs 149.12 crore to railways,” stated the CAG, besides recommending to fix responsibility on the officials for the lapse resulting in loss of revenue.
The audit also found the failure of ECoR to implement the ministry’s instructions as well as zonal railways’ commercial circular on applicability of tariff on siding distance resulted in loss of freight earnings of Rs 6.12 crore during the period from October 2020 to February 2022.
Paradip (PRDP) is a major rake handling station of ECoR, which had notified the siding named ‘Paradip Port through distance siding (alpha code-PPTP)’ with a chargeable distance of PRDP plus 7.45 km (distance up to Paradip from source or destination station plus 7.45 km of siding distance) on through distance basis.
It was, however, noticed that 245 rakes loaded from PPTP siding were booked to Tata Steel Limited (TSLJ)/Jakhapura and Bokaro steel plant siding during October 2020 to February 2022. Although those rakes were loaded from PPTP siding, the originating station in the railway receipts was incorrectly shown as ‘Cargo Berth Siding (CBSP)’, which has a chargeable distance of PRDP plus zero km.
The CAG also pointed out that ECoR awarded a cleaning contract worth Rs 7.26 crore without giving due recognition to the instructions of its own Vigilance department, and the administration failed to discharge the duty of principal employer to ensure payment of minimum wages to the contract labourers engaged in cleaning at Sambalpur station. There were frequent labour strikes at Sambalpur station to protest non-payment of minimum wages in 2017-18.
Audit observed that the bills were passed on the basis of a copy of letters sent by the contractor to his bank for making payment to accounts of labourers, but a mismatch was found between the amounts shown in the letter and actual amounts paid to the labourers during March 2016-Jan 2019. “Despite the instructions to ban business with the contractor, which was habitual of forging documents to get contracts, the sanitation work was awarded to the same firm for four years at Rs 7.26 crore,” the report stated.