What Nagaland’s newspapers are asking after CAG findings
The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) reports tabled in the Nagaland Assembly on September 3 and now available on the CAG’s Nagaland website have been reported across Nagaland’s newspapers, while recent editorials have picked up different findings from the reports and raised questions about what they mean.
One asks what happens after financial irregularities are detected. Another looks at how government rules were handled before public money was spent.
In its September 7 editorial, The Morung Express drew attention to 30 cases of misappropriation, defalcation, loss and theft involving Rs 1,214.37 crore that were pending as of March 31, 2025.
According to the CAG report, 25 of these cases, involving Rs 1,187.88 crore, were awaiting departmental and criminal investigation, while five cases involving Rs 26.49 crore were pending in courts. Ten of the 30 cases had remained unresolved for more than five years.
The editorial also pointed to 210 utilisation certificates involving Rs 365.25 crore that remained pending. Of this, Rs 121.72 crore related to the period before 2019-20.
The editorial asks what happens after such findings are recorded—whether investigations are completed, responsibility is fixed and public money is recovered. It points to the gap between the detection of financial irregularities and the completion of the processes that are supposed to follow.
A September 9 editorial by Nagaland Post, titled “Overriding The System,” approaches the CAG findings from a different direction, looking at cases where procedures, approvals and safeguards were bypassed or where expenditure did not produce the intended outcome.
One of the major cases highlighted is the Jal Jeevan Mission.
The CAG audit found that material supply under the mission was awarded to a single supplier without inviting tenders, resulting in an avoidable extra expenditure of Rs 288.12 crore.
The audit also examined Functional Household Tap Connections in 34 test-checked villages. Against a target of 16,288 connections, only 8,251 had been provided.
The CAG said 5,851 households were deprived of the intended benefit. It further found that Rs 21.57 crore shown as expenditure against those connections was fictitious expenditure because the services had not been provided.
The CAG audit also found weaknesses in the planning of the scheme. None of the Project Implementing Units examined had conducted baseline surveys to establish the actual number of households requiring tap connections. The Village Action Plans also did not contain basic information such as the history of earlier water supply schemes and the status of existing infrastructure.
In 32 of the 34 test-checked villages, existing water infrastructure was already present.
The audit further found discrepancies between the number of households reflected at different stages of planning and implementation. In the four test-checked districts, Village Action Plans projected a rural population of 6,19,986, compared with 4,12,669 in the 2011 Census. The audit noted that the VAP projection was 50.24 per cent higher than the 2011 Census figure, despite Nagaland recording negative decadal population growth of 0.47 per cent between 2001 and 2011.
The Nagaland Post editorial also refers to the CAG’s findings on groundwater-based schemes under Jal Jeevan Mission. Three of the five Project Implementing Units examined had not used Hydro-Geo-Morphological maps for 40 groundwater schemes.
In Hamlikong village in Longleng, for instance, Rs 23.05 lakh was spent on a deep tube well, iron removal plant and RCC tank under a project costing Rs 45.18 lakh. The audit found that no water was being drawn from the system when households were connected. The tube well and pump were idle or non-functional, while beneficiaries depended on a spring for their water needs.
The CAG noted that the Integrated Management Information System nevertheless showed 101 of the 141 households as connected, pointing to weaknesses in monitoring and verification.
The Nagaland Post editorial moves beyond Jal Jeevan Mission to other projects where expenditure and physical progress or intended outcomes did not match.
At the NST Central Workshop in Dimapur, more than six years after work began, Rs 10.61 crore had been spent while physical progress stood at only 33 per cent. The audit also noted an additional financial burden of Rs 16.64 crore, while the intended transport and revenue benefits had not materialised.
Another case concerns a Botanical Garden-cum-Recreational Park at Jalukie. The CAG found that Rs 2.87 crore was spent on a facility constructed on privately owned land, contrary to NEC guidelines. The facility remained idle for two years, resulting in loss of potential revenue, and the audit recommended that land records be updated to reflect government ownership.
The Nagaland Post editorial also raises the case of a Rs 13.26-crore Working Women Hostel constructed on privately owned land, highlighting questions over the arrangements surrounding government-funded assets and the safeguards attached to public expenditure.
The two editorials therefore approach the reports from different points.
The Morung Express focuses more closely on what follows an irregularity – pending investigations, cases before courts and utilisation certificates that remain unsettled.
Nagaland Post, meanwhile, focuses on what happened before and during expenditure: tendering procedures, approvals, project planning, land ownership and whether expenditure translated into the intended public benefit.
The CAG findings behind the editorials cover a much wider range of government departments and programs.
The audit of the State’s finances recorded the Rs 1,214.37 crore in pending cases, while the audit covering social, economic, general and revenue sectors examined schemes and expenditure across areas including Jal Jeevan Mission, MGNREGA, transport, tourism, horticulture, municipal affairs, health and other sectors.
Among the findings in the sectoral audit were irregularities in MGNREGA enrolment and wage payments, projects reported as completed but not physically existing, deficiencies in social audits and the functioning of Ombudsman offices, as well as issues relating to learner licences, vehicle tax collection and penalties under the transport department.
The audit also found cases of expenditure on works or assets where government procedures and conditions were not followed, including the Jalukie botanical garden and the Working Women Hostel.
The CAG is India’s constitutional auditor of government accounts and expenditure. Its reports are laid before the legislature and contain audit findings on government spending, schemes and financial management.
The two editorials have therefore drawn attention to different aspects of the same CAG reports – one to what follows when an irregularity is detected, and the other to how procedures and safeguards were handled before and during expenditure.
