CAG audit report pertaining to Railways presented in Parliament

New Delhi [India], April 3 (ANI): A compliance audit of 'Working of Mancheswar Carriage Repair Workshop' in East Coast Railway has observed that the projections for coaches due for POH (periodical overhaul) were not realistic and the same had undergone downward revision every year.
Audit Report No. 2 of 2025 - 'Union Government (Railways) - Compliance Audit Report' was laid on the table of the two Houses of the Parliament on Thursday.
A release said that the Audit Report contains results of the compliance audit of the Working of Mancheswar Carriage Repair Workshop in East Coast Railway and the Construction of 5th and 6th line between Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT)-Kurla Station of Ministry of Railways, covering up to the financial year 2022-23.
According to audit observations, Carriage Repair Workshop, Mancheswar (CRW/MCS) of East Coast Railway (ECoR) was established in November 1981 for the purpose of undertaking repair of Railway coaches. CRW/MCS initially had a capacity for Periodical Overhaul (POH) of 45 coaches per month which was increased to 100 coaches per month in 2003-04.
During 2008 to 2016, augmentation of the workshop was carried out to enhance the outturn capacity of the workshop to 150 coaches per month. As against the outturn capacity of 150 coaches per month, the outturn of the workshop during the period from 2016-17 to 2022-23 ranged between 86 and 113 coaches per month.
Audit on the working of the workshop was conducted to assess whether the targets were set based on actual POH arising of the workshop and were achieved in a timely manner. Audit also focused on the issues related to augmentation of the capacity of the workshop besides management of machinery and stores.
"Audit observed that the projections for coaches due for POH were not realistic and the same had undergone downward revision every year. Besides delay in sending of coaches for POH by the depots, the time taken by the workshop in carrying out POH of coaches was up to three years as against the prescribed cycle days of 15/20 days," said the release issued by Office of Comptroller and Auditor General of India.
The audit also observed that the maximum instances of delays were in the Coach Body Repair Shop.
The release said 191 coaches were idle for a period ranging from 10 days to 171 days involving 6,558 idle coach-days and in 43 instances, the coaches were idle for more than 50 days.
In August 2012, the Railway Board directed all Zonal Railways to monitor coach failures within 100 days of POH and take preventive action.
In the minutes of meeting of Chief Works Engineers held in February 2020, PCMEs of Zonal Railways were directed to ensure that the quality of outturn must be of high degree and quality parameters like sick marking of POH coaches should be monitored by CWE/CWM and root cause analysis of all the failures reported should be undertaken, and preventive action be taken accordingly.
The audit observed that the number of coaches that failed within 100 days of POH during the period 2018-19 and 2019-20 was 103 and 139 respectively.
"Out of 3402 coaches overhauled during 2020-23, 131 coaches failed within 100 days of POH," the release said.
The POH capacity of the workshop was understated while reporting to Railway Board. Despite enhancement of its POH capacity to 150 coaches per month in 2016, further capacity augmentation works worth Rs 181.78 crore was taken up during 2018-19 to 2022-23 without assessing the compatibility of existing infrastructure and a realistic requirement in future.
Audit also observed that the budgeting of the workshop was not based on the unit cost as per codal provisions and also in commensurate with the projection for POH of coaches leading to excess budgeting.
"The coach ownership of ECoR shows wide variation in coach holding data of depots, Zonal Headquarter and Integrated Coach Management System (ICMS) due to not feeding real time data," the release said.
"Four high-value machines worth Rs 4.15 crore had been lying idle for years due to inherent defects of the machines. A shortfall in the procurement of material had resulted in a shortage of stocks and the user units repeatedly complained about non-availability of materials," it added.
The monitoring of POH activities through Workshop Information System (WISE) application was not effective. There were several instances of mismatch of data between WISE and manual records, the release said.
On the construction of 5th and 6th line between Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT)-Kurla Station, the audit report said the Railway Board's (RB) instructions of June 2008 for provision of housing to be kept to a bare minimum level only just to meet the functional requirements and submission of estimate with full details and justification were not followed at the time of preparing Detailed Estimate.
This led to improper Detailed Estimate prepared by Rail India Technical and Economic Service (RITES) resulting in delay in its sanction by RB.
Baseline Socio-Economic (BSE) survey for Phase I work was not completed even after lapse of more than 11 years from September 2012.
Further, Project Affected Persons (PAPs) were not rehabilitated (January 2024) as Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) could not complete the construction work of units at Kilburn, Nahur.
"This led to delay in getting possession of land. Non-adherence of codal provisions and RB's instructions of minimum acquisition of land resulted in excess assessment of land requirement at the Detailed Estimate stage. Further, instances of lack of co-ordination between RITES and State Govt. agencies were noticed. These contributed in delay in BSE survey and land acquisition. Land acquisition process for Phase II work from Parel to CSMT was still at the initial stage," the release said.
"Contracts for construction were awarded without approved designs and drawings, clear sites, etc. which led to delay in completion of work. Audit also observed instances of idling of electrical and Signal and Telecommunications (S&T) materials due to award of contracts without ensuring availability of clear sites," it added.
The release said there was lack of co-ordination between Zonal Railways, as the proposal for transfer of land from Western Railway (WR) to Central Railway (CR) was forwarded by CR to WR in December 2015, but transfer of land by WR has not been done till date (January 2024). (ANI)