PUDUCHERRY: The Ice plant and storage plant created for the preservation of fish at a cost of Rs 3.09 crore in December 2015 has not commenced commercial operation even after more than five years of completion due to defective implementation of the project.
The Project Implementation Agency (PIA) under the control of the Department of Revenue and Disaster Management, UT of Puducherry (Department) in order to meet the present requirement of 53 metric tonnes (MT) of ice for the preservation of fish, set up of an ice plant along with storage. The production capacity of the plant is 50 MT of ice per day.
After completion of work, the Ice plant and storage plant was handed over to the Fisheries Department in August 2015 and December 2015 respectively.
Audit observed in January 2021 that the facilities created for preservation of fish could not be operationalised or put to commercial use till date due to frequent technical snags/faults i.e., smoke in chill plant, leakage of ammonia gas and low load-in suction plant.
The audit also observed that due to frequent snags, the Ice plant was temporarily closed in September 2017. The department also incurred an expenditure of 3.31 lakh on its repair/maintenance in December 2018.
The Ice plant was constructed by a contractor who had no experience relating to the establishment of Ice plant, observed the CAG. The Ice plant could not achieve the rated capacity of 50 MT per day against the projected normal time of 24 hours mainly due to inadequate provision of a cooling coil by the contractor.
Against the cooling coil requirement of 3,200 running feet, as envisaged in the agreement, the actual measurement of the coil installed by the contractor was only 1,600 running feet (50 per cent of the agreement requirement). This resulted in a longer cooling time for formation of ice. It was also seen that plant is actually producing 35 MT ice against the envisaged requirement of 50 MT ice per day.
The Department handed over the Ice plant/Storage plant to the Puducherry Fisheries Harbour Management Society for early operationalisation of the ice plant. The society in response proposed leasing out the chill plant for 12 months at a cost o 730.89 lakh. However, despite a lapse of two years, this proposal was yet to materialise for want of approval from the competent authority.