Wasteful expenditure by Sircilla civic body

Saifabad: The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has found wasteful expenditure of Rs 2.54 crore in the construction of intermediate pumping station even after initiation of water supply to Sircilla Municipality under Mission Bhagiratha.

The report states that government launched Mission Bhagiratha in November 2014 for supply of drinking water to rural and urban areas. Telangana Drinking Water Supply Corporation (TDWSC) was constituted for planning and execution of this project. It was decided that all ongoing water supply schemes outside the boundaries of Urban Local Bodies (ULB) shall be completed by Public Health Engineering Department and any new scheme outside the boundaries of ULBs would be executed by the TDWSC.

The Sircilla municipality draws water from Lower Manair Dam, Karimnagar as source under Sircilla Water Supply Improvement Scheme. In April 2013 the Municipality resolved to construct an intermediate pumping station with 13th Finance Commission grants near Kodurupakavillage which is outside the boundaries of the ULB, at an estimated cost of Rs 2.85 crore.

Audit observed (July 2018) that the work of "Construction of Intermediate pumping station at Kodurupaka' was awarded (June 2015) to a contractor despite specific direction (November 2014) from the government not to take up any new work outside the ULB." The work was completed in May 2016 at a cost of 2.53 crore. However, the pumping station is not being used, as drinking water is supplied to Sircilla Municipality under Mission Bhagiratha with effect from March 2018. The Department did not furnish specific reply for taking up construction of pumping station after launching of Mission Bhagiratha, the report said.

It however, stated (May 2019) that the pumping station has been kept as a standby for use in case of any exigency. The reply is not acceptable as the Municipality disconnected High Tension (HT) power connection of pumping station in May 2018 itself since it was not operational.