BHUBANESWAR: The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has come down heavily on Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited (BSCL) and Rourkela Smart City Limited (RSCL) for their failure in taking up a substantial volume of project components approved by the Centre in 2016-17 under the Smart City Mission (SCM).
In its latest audit report for the public sector undertakings, the CAG said as of March 2022, both BSCL and RSCL, the two special purpose vehicles (SPVs) formed for implementation of smart city projects in Bhubaneswar and Rourkela, managed to take up only 36 per cent and 37 per cent of their total approved smart city proposals respectively.
“Substantial volume of components of the projects, 64 per cent in case of BSCL and 63 per cent in case of RSCL, could not be taken up depriving city dwellers of the envisaged benefits. As a consequence, both the cities lost their ranking as smart city drastically,” the CAG said.
The smart city proposals of the two cities, as approved by the MoHUA, contained projects worth Rs 4,537 crore for BSCL and Rs 2,571 crore for RSCL. However, BSCL implemented projects worth Rs 1,621.94 crore while RSCL took up projects worth Rs 950.91 crore between 2016-17 and 2021-22.
“Funds were supposed to be mobilised by the two SPVs from different sources, including Rs 2,578 crore and Rs 334 crore respectively, in PPP mode. However, no planning was made to tap these sources for which both the SPVs mobilsed only Rs 1,817 crore till March 2022 against the required funds of Rs 7,108 crore,” the report said and added that in absence of proper mobilisation of funds and resources, BSCL and RSCL reduced their smart city component size significantly by dropping many area-based development (ABD) projects.
The report further said BSCL had originally planned 57 ABD and pan city projects worth Rs 4,537 crore but subsequently revised it to 37 projects worth Rs 1,621.94 crore. Similarly, RSCL had initially planned 31 ABD and pan city projects worth Rs 1,702 crore but later revised it to 60 projects with a reduced fund size of Rs 950.91 crore.
Out of 37 revised projects, BSCL completed only 16 till March 2022. Similarly, out of 60 revised projects, RSCL completed only 21 till the audit period.
While the state government claimed the projects were curtailed to adjust availability of funds, the CAG said the reply was not acceptable as SPVs were responsible for timely mobilisation of resources from internal and external means for implementation of smart city proposals within the deadline.
The CAG underlined that delay in completion of two multi-level car parking units at Rajmahal and Saheed Nagar by the BSCL led to loss of revenue amounting to Rs 11.60 crore, while unplanned procurement by the agency led to idle expenditure of over Rs 3 crore.
Similarly, irregular expenditure from the SCM fund for operation and maintenance of parks caused a loss of Rs 34 lakh to RSCL.
