GUWAHATI, July 13 ? At a time when the entire State is reeling under the fury of floods and erosion, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has pointed out a case of wasteful expenditure incurred by the Water Resources Department ?due to an injudicious decision to take up erosion protection work under the ?Flood Damage Repair? (FDR) scheme in an area known to be prone to recurring flood and erosion.? The CAG, in its report presented to the State Assembly yesterday, said that the Department incurred a wasteful expenditure amounting to Rs 63.65 lakh and the work remained incomplete and did not serve any purpose.
Giving a detailed account of the project, the CAG report said that the anti-erosion project to protect the Saikhowa protection bund phase-III including silting device to divert combined channel of Lohit and Debang rivers to its original course was approved by the Government of Assam in March, 1999, at an estimated cost of Rs 3.46 crore. The project was aimed at protection of about 49 villages having a population of about 45,000. The report said that an amount of Rs 63.65 lakh was spent on the project, of which Rs 43.54 lakh was released from the FDR scheme and Rs 20.11 lakh was released from the Non Lapsable Pool of Central Resources. The report said that the Executive Engineer concerned submitted a certificate on the completion of the project from the Deputy Commissioner, Tinsukia, in June, 2000 but the bund breached in August in the same year.
The report further said: ?The contention of the Executive Engineer that the existing erosion of the Saikhowa protection bund phase-III could be arrested by the execution of the FDR project proved to be unreliable and the sanctioned project st