- The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) admonished the Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) for neither formulating environmental standards nor preparing any elaborate program for prevention, control or for reducing water pollution in the State.
- It recommended the State to ensure periodic inspection of industries and take appropriate action against industries operating without the consent of PPCB and monitor the quality of ground water.
- Even the Punjab Water Quality Review Committee (PWQRC) and its sub-committee had not undertaken the activities and has remained non-functional since its constitution.
- Punjab Water Quality Review Committee (PWQRC) was formed in 2002 to monitor the process of measures to assess the quality of water bodies and identify areas requiring immediate action for improving the quality of water resources.
- Even the risk to humans from the contamination of water bodies had not been assessed resulting in a significant increase in the number of cases of water-borne diseases significantly from 39,781 in 2008 to 2,76,393 in 2012.
- The Delhi High Court has been told that:
- The Aam Aadmi Party’s decision to get the accounts of private power distribution companies audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) suffered from constitutional infirmity.
- The statutory and constitutional provisions were not complied with in the decision to conduct CAG audit of private discoms.
- The decision appears to have been taken to fulfil promises made on election manifesto and not in public interest.
- The Lieutenant-Governor was not bound to act on the government’s advice in the matter, but is empowered to apply his mind in exercise of his discretionary power under the Constitution.
- The other side of the argument is that the CAG audit of telecom firms and discoms, which are the private firms, are 2 entirely different matters as the latter had not shared their revenue with the government.
- Read at:http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-newdelhi/cag-raps-punjab-pollution-control-board/article6239426.ece
- http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-newdelhi/cag-audit-suffered-from-constitutional-infirmity/article6239628.ece