Gujarat: RO plants where water is scarce, hostel 35 km from school, irregularities CAG found in border areas programme

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Gujarat: RO plants where water is scarce, hostel 35 km from school, irregularities CAG found in border areas programme




In its audit of the BADP for the period 2016-17 to 2021-22, CAG found that not a single village out of 185 border villages were saturated with basic amenities (archive)

Constructing a 1.5 km road between villages that are 3.5 km apart, setting up RO plants where there is scarcity of water, approving tube wells where ground water is saline, building a hostel on private land 35 km away from the nearest school, and conducting public outreach programmes without allocation of specific funding: These are some of the major examples of irregularities in the Border Areas Development Programme (BADP) unearthed by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India whose report was tabled in the Gujarat Assembly Friday.

In Gujarat, the BADP is implemented in seven border blocks of three districts — Banaskantha, Kutch and Patan. Overall, 328 works out of 958 works in 35 villages in three districts were selected for performance audit. In its audit of the BADP for the period 2016-17 to 2021-22, CAG found that not a single village out of 185 border villages were saturated with basic amenities.

The programme covers all villages, semi-urban and urban areas located within 0 to 10 km (aerial distance) from the first habitation from the international boundary.As per the BADP guidelines of 2015, the saturation of a village requires basic facilities such as road connectivity, schools, sports facilities, health services, electricity, water supply, community centres, and public toilets (particularly for women).

While none of the 185 villages in the 0-10 km area from the border could be declared saturated till July 2023, even the very definition of “saturated”, supposed to be based on local conditions, was not decided till January 2023 when this audit was underway.

Further, since this is a border scheme, priority is to be given to the villages identified by the border guarding force as strategic villages. In this case, it is the Border Security Force (BSF). However, according to the CAG report, “The department stated that the participation of the BSF was ensured in April 2022 and due priority was given to the projects suggested by BSF. During the exit conference in July 2023, the secretary of the home department directed the district officials to obtain the list of strategic villages from the BSF. However, the audit found the reply of the department unconvincing as meetings of the DLC were not held regularly.”

Planning and evaluation, or lack thereof

“The district authorities did not conduct a ‘need analysis’ in the border villages in the form of a baseline survey to assess the gaps in basic physical and social infrastructure,” said the report.

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