According to the audit report, tabled in the parliament on Thursday, the projections for coaches due for Periodical Overhaul, or POH, were not realistic and underwent 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,” the CAG said in its audit report, flagging several irregularities in the workshop’s operations.
Carriage Repair Workshop, Mancheswar of East Coast Railway was established in November 1981 to repair railway coaches.
The workshop initially had a capacity for POH of 45 coaches per month, which was increased to 100 coaches 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,” the report said.
“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,” it added.
The CAG said that the audit was aimed at assessing whether the targets were based on actual POH arising from the workshop and were achieved within time.
“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,” the report said.
In August 2012, the Railway Board directed all Zonal Railways to monitor coach failures within 100 days of POH and take preventive action.
The number of coaches that failed within 100 days of POH during the period 2018-19 and 2019-20 was 103 and 139 respectively, it said.
“Out of 3402 coaches overhauled during 2020-23, 131 coaches failed within 100 days of POH,” the report said
The audit also found the POH capacity of the workshop was understated in its report to the Railway Board.
“Despite enhancement of its POH capacity to 150 coaches per month in 2016, further capacity augmentation works worth ₹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,” the report said.
The report observed several other irregularities such as four high-value machines worth ₹4.15 crore lying idle for years due to inherent defects, shortfall in procurement of material resulting in shortage of stocks, and monitoring of POH activities through ineffective Workshop Information System application.
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