Southern States - Andhra Pradesh   

CAG critical of eSeva project

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD MARCH 31. In a stinging criticism of eSeva, unquestionably the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu's pet hi-tech initiative, has been described by the CAG as a `project that suffered from lack of transparency, inefficient and ineffective implementation...' The Comptroller and Auditor-General's report for 2001-02 was presented to the A.P. Assembly on Monday.

The report said "though the Government launched a unique and conceptually good project to put e-Governance into action to provide for a large number of services to citizens,'' it suffered from these drawbacks "largely due to unpreparedness of the participating departments and inadequate coordination.'' The report was laid on the table of the House by the Finance Minister, Y. Ramakrishnudu.

The network of eSeva was exposed to serious risks of physical access and logical controls.

The key data and huge volumes of cash pertaining to various departments had been left to the administration of private operator without adequate internal controls.

The eSeva project, a new service, was launched without formal budget provision and without conducting feasibility study. Financial rules were largely neglected by the Director, eSeva project, in implementing the programme. It was rushed through even when the participating departments were not ready.

On the financial position of the State, the CAG pointed to the State Government showing grants-in-aid to local bodies of Rs.761.59 crores under capital section instead of revenue section of the accounts in violation of the rules made by the President of India.

This led to understatement of revenue deficit in the Finance Accounts. Further subsidy of Rs. 1807 crores to energy sector was classified under plan expenditure. "These misclassifications affected transparency in the financial data of the Government.''

The State Government continued to be heavily dependent on ways and means advances and overdraft and obtained such advances on 336 days amounting to Rs.11,268 crores. More than half (54 per cent) of the borrowed funds were applied to meet revenue expenditure.

Interest payments increased by 21 per cent over the previous year and grew at a faster pace (28 per cent average annual growth) during 1997-2002 compared to average growth of revenue receipts (14 per cent).

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