CAG begins Delhi-Noida-Delhi audit, to file report in four weeks

New Delhi: Acting on the Supreme Court’s direction, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has begun its audit into the total cost of the Delhi-Noida-Delhi (DND) flyway project under a 15-member team led by the Uttar Pradesh principal accountant general. Audit officials specialising in commercial and revenue with experience in PWD and information technology will assist him.

The private Noida Toll Bridge Co. Ltd. (NTBCL) collects toll and maintains the DND Flyway.

The CAG will look into the concessionaire agreement, the entire gamut of the toll collection and its recovery on the flyway connecting Delhi and Noida ever since the company started its operations 15 years ago. The report will also probe the role of the officials of the Union urban development ministry and UP government. The auditors will probe whether the government policy resulted in windfall gains for the DND operators.

The entry conference, which is the first meeting between the CAG and the auditee NTBCL that marks the beginning of the audit process, was held on November 19. “The entry conference was conducted to understand the operations of the company better and collect the relevant records for the audit,” informed sources told this newspaper. In a letter to the Uttar Pradesh chief secretary, the CAG has given the assurance to submit the report in four weeks as mandated by the apex court.

The SC had earlier refused to stay an Allahabad high court order ending toll collection on the DND.

The HC based its ruling on the understanding that the private company had already collected much more toll than the originally estimated revenue estimates. In its ruling, the Allahabad HC had quoted NTBCL’s records stating that the company had collected more than Rs 800 crore from toll collection up to March 2014 whereas the entire project cost Rs 325.