CAG pulls up Centre for faulty grain procurement

NEW DELHI: The UPA government at the Centre has been pulled up for ’inefficient’ foodgrain procurement and excessive reimbursement on procurement incidental expenses that according to the Comptroller and Auditor General cost the exchequer over Rs 3,300 crore.

“Audit of procurement (between ’00-01 and ’04-05) revealed significant inefficiencies with quantified financial effect of Rs 1,310.30 crore and several instances of reimbursement of excessive statutory levies and non-statutory charges comprising procurement incidentals amounting to Rs 2,005.61 crore,” the report has said.

The report tabled in Parliament said audit examination revealed deficiencies in the distribution of foodgrains, ’which affected the achievement of food security’.

The offtake of foodgrains under the APL (above the poverty line) families was just 10.9% of the total allotment between ’00-01 and ’04-05, reflecting consistently poor assessment of APL requirements, the report said.

As regards the BPL (below the poverty line) scheme, due to differences in norms, the number of BPL households identified by the state governments was 32% higher than the estimates of the Union government leading to scaling down of rations, the report said.

The report said audit found irregularities in identification of BPL and AAY (Antodaya Anna Yojana) beneficiaries, including delays in the identification process and issue of ration cards, failure to weed out ineligible/bogus beneficiaries and issue of ration cards to ineligible beneficiaries.