For a change,it is the Environment Ministry that has been pulled up. In a first-of-its-kind report on workings of the Environment Ministry,the office of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has pointed out several irregularities,including wastage and misutilisation of funds. The CAG report,which is for the period 2008-09,studied the functioning of the ministry in four broad areas of afforestation,biodiversity conservation,pollution control and spreading environmental awareness. The report found that there had been serious non-achievement of objectives,lack of monitoring from the ministry,delay in framing regulations and acute lack of manpower in certain areas. The most serious charge brought out by the report pertains to the funds made available to NGOs for afforestation projects had almost completely been siphoned off. The report says that only 3.5 per cent of the projects sanctioned to NGOs and about 23 per cent of those given to the state forest departments had been completed between 2003 and 2009. Most of these NGOs,which had taken money from the ministry have now disappeared and are untraceable. The possibility of misutilisation/fraud could not be ruled out, the CAG said.
