Media Focus on Public Finances

How citizens can use audit reports to be effective watchdogs

CAG Report on governance of NOIDA: The Performance Audit Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India on Land Acquisition and Allotment of Properties in NOIDA laid on the floor of the Legislative Assembly of UP in December 2021 is the first Audit report of the C&AG since the jurisdiction of audit of Noida and three other development authorities was entrusted to the CAG in July 2017.  The CAG has drawn stakeholders’ attention to the wide-spread corruption, undue favoritism to private firms, arbitrariness, collusion between officials and builders in the functioning of Authority in allotment of plots during the period 2005-2018 leading to loss of thousands of crores of rupees to the Authority/Government, besides causing distress to thousands of homebuyers that has invited severe strictures from Hon. Supreme Court against NOIDA. We highlight important findings at our Blog https://ipaiindia.org/the-cag-report-on-the-functioning-of-noida/ . Please also see the following links.

• • Webinar on Issues and lessons arising from the CAG report June 9 · 11:30am – 1:00pm Lead Presenter R B Sinha, ex-Member, Bihar RERA 
  • R B Sinha presentation on CAG Report on Noida Functioning.V1 9th June
  • R B Sinha – The elusive Sports Cities of Noida
  • R B Sinha – Noida Land Scam,a throwback  Part I   Part II   Part III  Part IV   Part V
  • Pranab Mukhopadhyaya NOIDA & builders: Corruption and complicity
  • Bibek Debroy Throwing light on governance failure in Noida
  • R B Sinha  Max Square Expose – Lead Story Infrastructure Live

Construction workers’ welfare The Building and other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act and Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Cess Act were enacted in 1996 for whole of India and the Rules were notified in 1998. The provisions of the Building and other Construction Workers’ (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996 concerning Cess and beneficiary registration are being transferred to the new Labor Code. The working of the Act has drawn frequent attention of judiciary  and covered in the CAG Reports. Here is a take as to why the cess funds remain unutilised.    Why the cess meant for welfare of construction workers remains largely unutilised –  E P Nivedita and Monali Phadtare