CAG pulls up Highways for delay in claiming dues from Railways

Chennai

In its audit report on the revenue and economic sector for the year ended March 2019, it said when the CAG reviewed follow up action on its 2014 observation on pending claims amounting to Rs 25.76 crore from Railways, the report said that it was seen that the situation had deteriorated in the last five years as the amount of reimbursement claims pending with the railways increased to Rs 224.13 crore. It noted that scrutiny of records in the HD revealed that in the majority of the works, expenditure on construction of approaches exceeded the expenditure of construction of bridge proper, leading to the submission of claims by HD for reimbursement of the excess expenditure from Railways.

Audit observed that HD had preferred reimbursement claims for the construction of bridge works in respect of 224 railways over bridge/under bridge undertaken during the period March 2002 to June 2019 amounting to Rs 616 crore. Of which Rs 392 crore was reimbursed by Railways to HD and the balance amount of Rs 224 crore was still pending.

CAG said that despite being pointed out by the audit as far back as in 2014, HD failed to take suitable remedial measures to streamline the process of the early settlement of claims.