Vijayawada: Despite the fact that the godowns available with AMCs were not fully utilised by them, the government has accorded administrative sanction for construction of 35 new one at a cost of Rs 37.82 crore.
Scrutiny of details of vacant godowns in East Godavari, Kurnool and Krishna districts for the year 2015-16 showed that 76 godowns with a total capacity of 50, 615 MTs have remained unoccupied for 8 to 12 months and 33 godowns with capacity of 43,490 MT remained vacant for 4 to 7 months during 2015-16.
Despite this, AMCs continued to construct godowns without ascertaining the requirement. This issue also is likely to come up in the Zero Hour.
As per records furnished to the audit wing, market fees amounting to Rs 1,787.51 crore was collected during 2011-15 by the AMCs.
Of this, Rs 1,344.33 crore was spent by them. In test-checked districts, it was seen that expenditure incurred by AMCs was mainly towards meeting their establishment and office expenditure (45%, including the advances paid to staff) and for construction of godowns in market yards (23%).
No expenditure was incurred on providing facilities and activities like grading, standardisation, quality certification services, publicity and propaganda to encourage sale inside market yards etc.
