Implementation of JNNURM in a mess, says CAG, hints scheme too big for Centre's bureaucrats

In the housing projects many dwelling units remained incomplete primarily for want of land," it said.

The report said that against an allocation of Rs 66,084.66 crore by the Planning Commission, the Government of India had only made an allocation of Rs 37,070.15 crore of which only Rs 32,934.59 crore had been released by March 31, 2011.

The CAG report also said that in some cases, there were deficiencies in selection of beneficiaries of houses for urban poor which led to risks of ineligible beneficiaries getting the benefit.

"A few cases of unauthorised and irregular expenditure and even instances of undue favours to contractors came to light.

Due to delays in implementation of the projects, there were many cases of blockade of funds due to purchase of machinery/ equipment which was not put to use," the CAG said.

The CAG said that the JNNURM guidelines had been deficient in giving adequate advisory to states regarding parking of funds and there was no uniformity in utilising interest earned on parked funds.

It said that the Urban Development Ministry's web-enabled programme for monitoring and evaluation had proved to be unsuccessful.

The report said that in some states and Union Territories, mandatory and optional reforms had not been carried out as per the commitments made between state and central governments.

"Thus, the objective to bring about reform in financial, institutional, and structural governance structure of the ULBs to make them efficient, accountable and transparent could not be achieved as had been envisaged," the report said.

In its report, the CAG has recommended that the central government should give incentives to those states which implement the reforms envisaged under JNNURM.

It also suggests that delays should be monitored and timely implementation of projects be given due importance.

Giving wide publicity to schemes to generate awareness among eligible beneficiaries was another recommendation made by the CAG.

... contd.

ALSO READ

India, other FTA members to share 'offshore leaks' tax info

RBI likely to cut policy rates at its June 17 meeting: Experts

Indians more willing to share personal info than others: Cisco report

ATM heist: India's IT sector in unwelcome spotlight