KL Report
SRINAGAR
Throwing light on the Audit report that has been already presented to legislature of J&K on April 5, Principal Accountant General Dr S C Panday Thursday revealed that there are several loop holes in various departments of the government including power department.
Addressing media Panday said, “the power Department had not formulated the State Electricity Policy and State Electricity Plan. The transmission and distribution losses were very high at the level of 56.76 per cent (2011-12). The transmission losses ranged between 4.43 and 8.14 per cent against CEA norms of four per cent. The time overrun in completion of 40 projects ranged between three and 48 months at the cost overrun of 113.43 crore was noticed in 23 projects”.
He said, “Although 85 per cent households were electrified as per Census 2011 figures, the number of households covered by properly functional meters were far less as evidence by the huge gap between expenditure on purchase of power by the Department and its receipts.
He added, “Due to non-maintenance of Gird discipline the Department had to bear the burden of payment of Unscheduled interchange charges to the extent of 1,405.65 crore for delayed payment of these charges.
Indecision on the part of the department for evacuation of power from the Thein dam hydro electric power project for the last three decades resulted in non-utilization of 220 KV double circuit Thein-Hiranagar transmission line and consequent idle investment of 25.73 crore”.
“Audit recommends that the State government should review the agreement (January 1979)with Punjab Government for sharing power and irrigation water share of RanjitSagar Dam (Thein Dam)project on river Ravi, signed by then Chief Minister of the two States, at the highest level after conducting a rigorous cost benefit analysis to find out the financial impact of the acceptance of the deviations in the agreement sought by the Panjab Government, considering the overall cost of Power procured by the State from alternative sources”.
He further revealed, “State’s Own Deficit continues to be high as there was 63 per cent dependence of State budget on non-debt resources from the Central Government during 2011-12”.
“There are many deficiencies in Industries department including unplanned execution of industrial estates/ growth centres, leading to unproductive investments, inadmissible and irregular payment of subsidies, Vat reimbursement and irregular exemption of toll tax”.
