East Coast Railway incurs a loss of over Rs 162 between 2018 and 2022: CAG report | Pragativadi | Odisha News, Breaking News Odisha, Latest Odisha News

Bhubaneswar: The East Coast Railway (ECoR) incurred a loss of Rs 162.5 crore between 2018 and 2022, as per a CAG report. The losses were due to non-levy of shunting charges, irregular rake bookings, and undue favour to a cleaning agency. Around Rs 149.12 crore was lost from unbilled shunting activities at Paradip Port Trust siding (PPAP). Additionally, faulty implementation of tariff instructions led to Rs 6.12 crore in freight earnings losses.

The CAG report has alleged failure of ECoR in implementing the Railway Ministry’s instruction on applicability of tariff on siding distance resulted in loss of freight earnings of Rs 6.12 crore. The audit also pointed out that ECoR awarded a cleaning contract of Rs 7.26 crore to an agency.

The contract labourers were engaged at Sambalpur station, resulting in frequent labour strikes over non-payment of minimum wages. To pay the labourers, bills were passed based on the copy of letters sent by the agency contractor.

However, there was a mismatch found between the amounts of money shown in the letter and the actual amounts paid to the labourers, resulting in a loss of Rs 7.26 crore.

“Despite the instructions to ban business with the contractor, which was habitual of forging documents to get contracts, the sanitation work was awarded to the same firm for four years at Rs 7.26 crore,” the CAG report stated.

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