CAG Moves Auditors Who Reported Irregularities In Central Schemes

The Comptroller and Auditor General transferred three personnel in charge of two audit reports that highlighted suspected anomalies in the Centre's Bharatmala and Ayushman Bharat projects, according to a media report.

In August, the audit reports were presented to parliament. The transfer orders were issued on 12 September, according to the news outlet. Atoorva Sinha and Dattaprasad Suryakant Shirsa, two of the transferred Indian Audit and Accounts Service personnel, were in charge of the audit reports that highlighted the alleged anomalies in the Dwarka Motorway project and the Ayushman Bharat scheme.

According to the report, the audit of Ayushman Bharat was launched by the third officer, Ashok Sinha. Atoorva Sinha, who was appointed as the main director of audit infrastructure in Delhi in March, has now been appointed as the accountant general in Kerala's Thiruvananthapuram. He was in charge of the report on highway projects under the Bharatmala Pariyojana Phase-I, which revealed a number of flaws. Bharatmala is the major road development project of the Centre.

The Comptroller and Auditor General's reports had highlighted irregularities in the Bharatmala project, the construction of the Dwarka Motorway, the National Highways Authority of India's violation of toll rules, the Ayushman Bharat Scheme and alleged undue advantage to the contractors in the Ayodhya Development Project.

According to the audit report, the budget for the Dwarka motorway project on the Delhi-Gurugram border has been increased from the originally sanctioned figure of Rs 18.2 crore per km to Rs 251 crore per km. According to the assessment of the Comptroller and Auditor General, the National Highways Authority of India's choice to opt for an elevated roadway in the Haryana section of the motorway increased the "civil construction cost by 14 times."

As per the CAG report, roughly 7.5 lakh Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Yojana beneficiaries were registered under a single mobile number - 9999999999. The Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Yojana is the national government's primary health-insurance scheme for the poor.