Bhubaneswar: The Integrated Act Plan (IAP) has failed in its basic aim of filling the critical gap in development of Left-wing extremism affected districts, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has said.
"Programme implementation was marred by abandonment of projects after partial execution, non-implementation of skill development and livelihood programmes for unemployed youths and non-prioritisation of LWE affected areas in allocation of resources," CAG said in its report on general and social sector for the year ended March 2012.
Odisha government, which received Rs 915 crore from the Centre for implementation of IAP programme, could utilise only Rs 564.75 crore (62 percent) upto March 31, 2012, the report said, adding that the proposals sent by district and block level officers of different departments were approved without pre-evaluating the intended outcome.
Shelf of projects were prepared without identifying critical gaps in infrastructure and services of LWEs hit area. Bottom up as well as participatory planning approach for identification of projects and assessment of need was totally absent, the report said.
Stating that LWE affected areas were not given priority, the CAG pointed out that altogether 5698 of the 8040 projects were approved by eight district level committees (DLCs) for execution in LWE areas in 2012.
While the project sanctioned by DLCs of Gajapati, Koraput, Malkangiri and Sundargarh ranged from 74 to 100 percent, sanctioned projects in other four districts like Kalahandi, Nuapada, Rayagada and Subarnapur ranged from 21 to 64 percent involving estimated outlay of 27 to 60 percent only for LWE areas, it said.
The CAG also identified inadequate physical inspection of the work sites under IAP though Planning Commission and the state government were periodically monitoring the programme.
"Transparency in execution of projects as well as quality control was not ensured. Implementation and monitoring of the programme was finance centric rather than deliverable specific," the CAG said in its observation after the audit of the IAP programme.
The programme was implemented in 60 selected tribal and backward districts of the country including 18 in Odisha.
PTI
