CAG found many deficiencies in Railways audit
The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), which audits the country’s government accounts, has paralysed the Railway Ministry. CAG has asked tough questions to the ministry over the financial loss of Rs 2,604.40 crore. CAG discovered this financial loss while auditing the ministry’s accounts.
CAG concluded in its investigation that this loss to the Railways was due to cases related to non-collection of GST. The CAG has looked into a total of 33 cases for this. Apart from GST not being collected properly, there have also been many other cases which have led to unnecessary expenditure.
The railways made wrong decisions
CAG has said in its report that the Railway Ministry took unfair decisions in the matter of revenue generation from fares and other sources. Concessions and subsidies were wrongly given in railway-related works. This resulted in unnecessary expenditure. Hence the Railways have suffered this loss. These reports of the CAG came to light in the audit of the period of financial year 2021-22 and previous years. But these things could not be found in the previous audit report.
read this too
The CAG report states that in one of these 33 cases, the Railways Ministry suffered a loss of Rs 834.72 crore in interest. Railways gave a piece of land under its control to IRCON for development. For this, a loan of Rs 3,200 crore was taken. Railways was forced to pay this amount to a third party as interest on this loan. IRCON repaid the loan with interest, but no development was undertaken on that land.
Ignore rental income
The CAG report also mentions avoidance of fixing liability for this huge loss and the decision to generate non-lease revenue at the end of the financial year without studying the feasibility. In another case, the CAG found that the Railways did not charge any fee for the locomotive shunting process. Due to this, East Coast Railway suffered a revenue loss of Rs 149.12 crore from 2018 to 2022.
A case of non-compliance with proper rules and provisions relating to collection of GST on services provided by the railways to siding owners has also come to light in this report. Due to this, the siding owners have not collected GST of Rs 13.43 crore.
CAG has asked the Railways to immediately recover the outstanding GST from siding owners to avoid loss to the exchequer and fix liability at appropriate level for non-implementation of the provisions of the GST notification.
Railway hospitals are also in poor condition
CAG has also audited the management of health services in Indian Railways. It has said that there is a shortage of medical and paramedical staff in Zonal Railway hospitals. According to CAG, the availability of medical machines and equipment was also found to be deficient in terms of IPHS (Indian Public Health Standards) norms.
