Bhubaneswar: The audit report by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), tabled in the Odisha Assembly, has exposed extensive financial irregularities, massive revenue leakages, and instances of potential fraud across multiple departments of the state government for the period ending March 2024.
The report highlights severe operational lapses across the Departments of Water Resources, Steel and Mines, Works, Animal Resources Development, and Forest, Environment & Climate Change, revealing hundreds of crores in losses and unrecovered statutory dues.
Among the most critical findings is the possibility of fraudulent payouts within the Water Resources Department’s Mukhyamantri Adibandha Tiari Yojana (MATY), a scheme designed to build check dams for irrigation and groundwater recharge. Despite mandatory geo-tagging rules introduced in 2022 to prevent duplication, an audit examining 331 check dams using Google Earth Pro and department-provided coordinates revealed that Rs 4.26 crore was spent between April 2023 and January 2025 on constructing seven check dams at locations where structures already existed.
Although the state government claimed the pre-existing structures were earlier builds or community-built earthen bunds, the CAG rejected these explanations, emphasising that contracts and payments were issued without any mention of replacing older infrastructure.
Beyond the check dam controversy, the Water Resources Department demonstrated systemic planning flaws, including Rs 91.57 crore wasted on 38 minor irrigation projects awarded without required land or forest clearances, and unrealistic budgeting that forced the department to surrender Rs 520.60 crore. The department also paid Rs 6.49 crore in inadmissible contingency charges to the Odisha Construction Corporation Limited and failed to recover Rs 67.54 crore in interest on advances totalling Rs 510.19 crore. Delays in 64 underground pipeline works left 19,290.95 hectares of cultivated land without the intended irrigation benefits, the report added.
In the steel and mines sector, the audit identified large-scale violations of environmental and royalty norms. One lessee extracted more than 1.17 crore metric tonnes of coal beyond or entirely without environmental clearance, generating a statutory recoverable amount of Rs 975.57 crore. Additional losses stemmed from unapproved mining beyond Consent to Operate limits, improper Run-of-Mine pricing, and uncollected interest on delayed dues, which combined to cost the state hundreds of crores in uncollected revenue. Production exceeding Consent to Operate limits for coal and chromite attracted recoverable fees of Rs 94.75 crore and Rs 12.04 crore respectively, while operations conducted without any CTO generated further recoverable values of Rs 45.59 crore and Rs 3.24 crore. Mining officers’ failure to levy interest on delayed royalty payments resulted in an additional revenue loss of Rs 69.53 crore.
Administrative failures extended into infrastructure and public service sectors as well. In the Works Department, inflated pavement estimates in Mayurbhanj division produced Rs 2.27 crore in extra costs, while exaggerated material transport distances across Works and Water Resources divisions yielded undue profits of more than Rs 3 crore for contractors. Inadequate surveys and land-acquisition delays left a bridge project in Kendujhar incomplete, locking up Rs 4.07 crore.
Meanwhile, the Fisheries and Animal Resources Development Department incurred Rs 16.60 crore in wasteful expenditure after installing 494 bio-medical waste incinerators that remain completely non-functional due to a simple lack of three-phase electricity connections. The forest department delayed disposal of seized timber, poles and firewood from undetected offences, leaving Rs 25.90 lakh in revenue unrealised.
The CAG attributed these widespread breakdowns to severe administrative gaps, notably a massive shortage of engineering personnel, reaching up to 94.4% in Quality Assurance divisions, and incomplete digital monitoring systems, with less than half of the planned Works and Accounting Management Information System modules active.
In light of these critical findings, the supreme audit body has urged immediate formal investigations into fraudulent billing, rapid enforcement of e-procurement standards, and the urgent recovery of all unpaid statutory dues.
