The Comptroller Auditor General of India (CAG) has come down heavily on the Union Tourism Ministry for wasteful expenditure of over ` 5 crore by sanctioning a project at a flood-prone zone in Puducherry without assessing its feasibility.

Needless to say, the spate of floods in the region in the past few years have washed away the tourism amenities constructed under the project at the site in Yanam in the UT, thus along with it, exchequer money also went down the drain, the CAG has revealed in its report tabled in Parliament recently.

It stated that under the central flagship Swadesh Darshan, the UT’s project envisaging construction of tourism amenities such as of walkway, fencing, and bamboo house etc at a sand dune in mid-stream at the junction point of Coringa river and Gowthami Godavari river in Yanam was given nod. “The DPR for development of tourism amenities submitted by the Department of Tourism, Puducherry, was sanctioned in December 2015 by the Ministry under the project ‘Development of UT of Puducherry as Tourist circuit’,” said the report.

The approval came despite the fact that the site was in a flood prone area and the highest flood level was faced in Yanam in August 2013, stated the top auditor. The Andhra Pradesh Government too had objected to the work stating that it was obstructing free flow of the Godavari River. Also, approval for construction activities was not obtained from the Yanam Planning Authority, it noted.

However, works were awarded between March 2017 and June 2018 and expenditure of ` 5.26 crore was incurred by Puducherry Tourism Department on components of walkway, fencing, bamboo house, rainwater shelter, solar lights etc.  However, during the flood in August 2018, amenities created on the site (valued at `1.33 crore) were damaged and another flood in August 2020 washed away the remaining structures (valued at ` 3.93 crore) completely, said the report. The Auditor has taken exception that the Ministry did not make any effort to assess feasibility and ground reality before sanctioning the project.

“The Programme Management Consultant visited the site only in December 2018, when works had already been executed and washed away in August 2018.”

Thus, despite being aware of the fact that the island was flood-prone, infrastructure was created thereon, which was washed away in flood, thereby resulting in unfruitful expenditure of `5.26 crore, as per the report.

The Ministry, while noting the audit observations, seems to have washed away its hands by stating that “it would seek comments from Government of Puducherry in this regard.”