The CAG has picked several holes in the National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) saying lack of planning and funds management resulted in incomplete works for providing safe drinking water to rural habitations, schools and anganwadis.
In its audit report tabled in Parliament on Tuesday, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) said only 44 per cent of rural habitations, 85 per cent of schools and anganwadis were provided with access to safe drinking water during 2012-17 when the target was to achieve 100 per cent.
Similarly, only 18 per cent of rural population was provided with potable drinking water (55 litre per capita per day- lpcd) by piped water supply when the target was 50 per cent.
It said the coverage increased by only 8 per cent at 40 lpcd and 5.5 per cent at 55 lpcd during 2012-17 despite the expenditure of Rs 81,168 crore.
As the target was to provide water connections to 35 per cent of rural households, the Water Ministry could achieve just 17 per cent, says one of the highlights of the audit.
The CAG attributed the programme’s failure to achieve the targets partly to deficiencies in implementation such as incomplete, abandoned and non-operational works, unproductive expenditure on equipment, non-functional sustainability structures and gaps in contract management that had a total financial implication of Rs 2,212.44 crore.
It also said the social audit of the programme to measure beneficiary level satisfaction was not conducted.
"Hence the overall monitoring and oversight framework lacked effectiveness and there was inadequate community involvement in this exercise," it said.
spk/qd/sed (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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