Odishatv Bureau
Patna: The CAG has indicted Bihar Animal and Fishery resources department for infructuous expenditure of Rs 19.1 cr on non-functional establisments.

In its report for the period ended on March 31, 2011, CAG said Rs 9.55 crore was spent on pay and allowances /salaries and wages etc of staff deployed in non - functional establishments like cattle breeding farms at Patna and Dumaraon (Rs 7.16 crore) and frozen semen Bank cum Bull station, Patna (Rs 2.39 crore).

Audit scrutiny RE that against the available accommodations of 650 and 450 respectively in these farms, the average available cattle in Patna and Dumaraon (Buxar) during 2007-11 was 29 and 30 respectively.

But none of the bulls was distributed for cattle breeding, through Rs 5.21 crore and Rs 1.95 crore were spent on the pay and allowances of the staff posted in Patna and Dumraon farms respectively.

The government stated (Nov 2011) that plans would be made to revive these cattle breeding farms and utilise the services of bulls for natural insemination.

The CAG said the frozen semen bank cum bull station (FSB-cum-BS), Patna was responsible for the collection of semen from exotic and cross breed bulls and to produce frozen semen straw breeding.

The auditor observed that FSB-cum-BS, Patna did not produce any frozen semen during 2007-11 due to non-allotment of funds under this scheme though Rs 2.39 crore was spent on wages of 28 employees. No efforts were made by the department to review the posting of these idle employees or to transfer them to other offices, it said.

The government stated (November 2011) that efforts were on for the production of semen straw by December 2011. Artificial insemination performance during 2008-11 was dismal and BLDA failed to produce any frozen semen dose during this period.

Due to dismal performance in the project, the central government did not release any further (second instalment) money.

Though the production target for frozen semen for articial insemination was 20 lakh doses per year, the BLDA failed to produce even a single dose during this period due to non-functioning of its laboratory and non-procurement of Bulls.

This resulted in the purchase of 4,74,852 doses of frozen semen at a cost of Rs 48.78 lakh during 2008-2-11 which was completely avoidable. The product failed to achieve its objectives in spite of incurring an expenditure of Rs 7.89 crore, the report said.

The government stated (November 2011) that due to non-availability of adequate infrastructure like laboratory etc and adequate release of funds in second phase, production could not be started.

However, it said that production of targeted frozen semen would begin from December 2011. The reply was not acceptable as the department could not even utilise the available funds.

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