The Comptroller and Auditor General transferred three officers who were in charge of two audit reports that flagged the alleged irregularities in the Centre’s Bharatmala and Ayushman Bharat schemes, The Wire reported.
The audit reports were tabled in parliament in August. The transfer orders were issued on September 12, the news website reported. Two of the transferred Indian Audit and Accounts Service officers, Atoorva Sinha and Dattaprasad Suryakant Shirsa, were in charge of the audit reports that flagged the alleged irregularities in the Dwarka Expressway project and Ayushman Bharat scheme.
The third officer, Ashok Sinha, had initiated the audit of Ayushman Bharat, The Wire reported.
Atoorva Sinha, who had become the principal director of audit infrastructure in Delhi in March, has now been posted as the accountant general in Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram, the report said. He was in charge of the report on highway projects under the Bharatmala Pariyojana Phase-I that pointed out number of irregularities. Bharatmala is Centre’s flagship road development scheme.
The Comptroller and Auditor General reports had flagged irregularities in the Bharatmala project, the construction of Dwarka Expressway, violation of toll rules by the National Highways Authority of India, the Ayushman Bharat Scheme and alleged undue advantage to the contractors in the Ayodhya Development Project.
The budget for the Dwarka expressway project on the Delhi-Gurugram border had been increased from the originally-approved amount of Rs 18.2 crore per km to Rs 251 crore per km, according to the audit report. The Comptroller and Auditor General report said that the National Highways Authority of India’s decision to opt for an elevated carriageway in the Haryana section of the expressway had pushed the “civil construction cost by 14 times”.
The CAG report also flagged that nearly 7.5 lakh beneficiaries of the Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Yojana were registered under a single cellphone number – 9999999999. The Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Yojana is the central government’s flagship scheme for health insurance for poor people.
Modi government operates Mafia style, says Congress
On Wednesday, the Congress demanded that the transfer orders of these three officers be cancelled immediately. The Centre should instead take action on mega scams relating to Dwarka Expressway, Bharatmala project and Ayushman Bharat, Congress MP Jairam Ramesh added.
“The Modi government operates mafia style under a cloak of silence and intimidation,” Ramesh said in social media post. “If anyone exposes its modus operandi of corruption, they are threatened or removed. The latest victims are three officers of the Comptroller and Auditor General, who exposed massive scams in government schemes in a report tabled during the Monsoon Session of Parliament.”
The report had documented 1400% cost inflation and tendering irregularities in the Dwarka Expressway, Ramesh said. He also added that the audit had flagged the diversion of Rs 3,600 crore from highways projects, faulty bidding practices and 60% cost inflation of the Bharatmala scheme.
Also read: What CAG’s indictment of Nitin Gadkari’s ministry signals
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