Eight electronic toilets on which the Faridabad Smart City Limited (FSCL), a special purpose vehicle set up by the Central and Haryana government, had spent ₹1.34 crore became defunct within a few months of being operationalised.
This happened due to poor maintenance and upkeep resulting in non-delivery of envisaged benefits to citizens and rendering the expenditure unfruitful, said a compliance audit done by the comptroller and auditor general (CAG), the report of which was tabled in the state assembly on Wednesday.
E-toilets are unmanned, automated, modular type and prefabricated public toilets with seats made of stainless steel and are integrated with user-friendly electronic interfaces to ensure cleanliness and hygiene to every user. The e-toilets have remote monitoring capabilities and its health status can be tracked over the internet.
“The FSCL incurred a wasteful expenditure of ₹1.34 crore due to faulty contract management and poor operation and maintenance of 10 e-toilets. Neither the deficiencies in these e-toilets have been removed nor these e-toilets have been transferred to Faridabad municipal corporation even after a lapse of over three years,” the audit said.
Smart Cities Mission launched for improving urban centres
The Central government initiated the Smart Cities Mission in collaboration with the state government and city authorities for improving urban centres and making them citizen friendly. FSCL which was set up to achieve it decided to install e-toilets in areas under Municipal Corporation Faridabad at selected locations on a pilot basis.
The toilets were to be connected over the general packet radio service (GPRS) network to ensure real time monitoring of their usage and health status. Their operation and maintenance (O&M) included all expenditures required to be incurred on all matters essential and desirable to run the built-in system and the bidders were required to ensure the insurance cover during the O&M period as per terms and conditions of tender.
The FSCL in 2017 awarded work for supply, installation, operation and maintenance of 10 e-toilets to a contractor for ₹1.86 crore with a defect liability period of two years.
The work for installation of eight e-toilets was completed in October 2018 and the O&M started from October 15, 2018. Installation of the remaining two e-toilets was completed in January 2019 and O&M for these two started from January 15, 2019. Till August 2019, the FSCL paid ₹1.34 crore for supply, installation, testing and commissioning of the e-toilets.
Auditors pointed out deficiencies in planning and contract
Observing deficiencies in planning and contract management, the CAG said the work of installation of e-toilets was awarded before conducting the feasibility study and preparing a detailed project report. The feasibility study had emphasised the necessity of monitoring the use of e-toilets by the public as a critical factor for its viability. However, the FSCL failed to ensure proper monitoring as it could not get the e-toilets connected to the GPRS network for remote monitoring and assess the real time status of facilities like entry, usage etc.
“In the absence of this automated system, incidences of vandalism, theft, non-availability of essential items, non-functioning of coin machines, unhygienic state of e-toilets etc. could not be tracked,” the auditors said.
While the construction of e-toilets was completed after a delay of 47 weeks from the scheduled completion date of the project, FSCL did not levy a penalty of ₹4.25 lakh as per bid document provisions.
The contractor got standard fire and special insurance only from May 13, 2019 to May 12, 2020 with a delay of four to seven months, which was not renewed. Further, the insurance cover against burglary and housekeeping was not taken which was mandatory under the terms and conditions of the contract. Hence, damages on account of theft could not be safeguarded.
The FSCL issued several notices to the contractor reiterating his failure in proper O&M but neither blacklisted the contractor nor terminated the contract even after a lapse of over three years after the Board of Directors had in November 2019 decided to blacklist/ terminate the contract at the earliest on account of poor performance. The contractor also failed to rectify the defects and discontinued the maintenance work from January 2021.
The FSCL did not get the defects rectified nor forfeited the performance bank guarantee of ₹9.31 lakh which was valid up to September 18, 2022, the audit said.
The report said that the matter for non-operation of e-toilets was placed before the board of directors which on July 25, 2019 directed that e-toilets be made functional by giving O&M work to any other agency. The board on May 20, 2020 also decided to hand over the e-toilets to Faridabad municipal corporation but the latter said the deficiencies be removed before they take over the e-toilets.
The FSCL management in its reply of November 2024 said that it has withheld a sum of ₹64.48 lakh along with ₹2.30 lakh for O&M. It had released ₹34.51 lakh to the contractor in compliance with the orders of micro and small enterprises facilitation council, Rajasthan. The order has been challenged by the FSCL before the high court.
“The reply is not acceptable as FSCL failed to get the work executed as per the terms and conditions of the agreement resulting in poor monitoring and O&M of these e-toilets. Despite withholding the payment of the contractor, the FSCL neither got the deficiencies of the e-toilets rectified nor took any action against the contractor as per the provisions in the agreement,” the report said.
The CAG said that during the exit conference in June 2023, the urban local bodies director, accepted that e-toilets became non-operational within a few months of installation due to poor O&M. The urban local bodies commissioner and secretary directed the FSCL to take action against the contractor in line with the decisions made in the board meetings on July 25, 2019 and November 18, 2019.