National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) suffered losses of about Rs 400 crore on various counts including undue favour to developers by not recovering damages for project delays, Government auditor CAG has said.
Indicting NHAI for undue favour to a developer on a stretch, CAG in its latest report said it cost NHAI a loss of nearly Rs 100 crore.
“NHAI extended undue benefit to the concessionaire to the tune of Rs 99.27 crore by not taking prompt action to recover the damages and maintenance cost from the concessionaire on account of its failure in achieving the project milestones and in meeting the maintenance obligations,” CAG said in its report tabled in Parliament on Tuesday.
It said NHAI in March 2012 had entered into a concession pact with Vijayawada Gundugolanu Road Project Pvt ltd for six laning of Vijayawada-Gundugolanu section of NH 5 but served termination notice as work was not commenced till August 2016.
“By that time, an amount of Rs 99.27 crore had become recoverable” but “NHAI failed to safeguard its financial interests as it neither encashed the bank guarantees submitted by the concessionaire nor recovered the dues from the Escrow account,” the report said, adding that it failed to recover the damages.