Poor planning, mgmt delayed projects in Patna Smart Cities Mission: CAG

The deficient financial management, poor planning and inclusion of unfeasible projects resulted in delayed or incomplete execution of projects under the Smart Cities Mission in Patna, the CAG said in a report.

The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) said that "unfeasible projects" were included in the list of 44 initially approved projects, indicating "poor planning on the part of Patna Smart City Limited (PSCL) and the Urban Development and Housing Department (UD&HD) of Bihar government".

"This ultimately resulted in delayed/incomplete execution of projects. The financial management of PSCL was also deficient, as funds had been diverted for unapproved projects and incorrect utilisation certificates had been submitted," said the compliance audit report of the CAG for the year ended March 31, 2022, which was tabled in the Bihar assembly on Thursday.

The contract management for the mission was also poor as the complete scheme did not fulfil the desired objectives, it said, adding that mobilisation advance was given to the vendor, without finalisation of the scope of work.

Till October 2022, 29, out of 44 approved projects, could not be started as they were found non-feasible for reasons like the projects already being executed by other agencies, no-availability of land, non-requirement of rooftop farming, likelihood that the project may attract huge crowds in already crowded areas etc," the auditor said in the report.

The PSCL, therefore, with the approval of the high-power steering committee (HPSC), dropped these 29 projects amounting to Rs 1,816.82 crore and revised the total cost of 15 projects to Rs 381.06 crore.

As per the necessity of the city and feasibility, the authorities added 14 new projects worth Rs 448.94 crore under the mission, it said.

During the audit, it was noticed that four projects, under execution, were lagging behind their scheduled dates of completion, the CAG report added.