NEW DELHI, Mar 30: A CAG report for the year ended March 2024 has flagged “excess expenditure” in maintenance of some properties linked to the Indian Embassy in Beijing, China, according to an official statement issued on Monday.
Report No. 36 of 2025 of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India for the year ended March 2024, Union Government (Compliance Audit – Civil & Commercial), was tabled in Parliament on Monday, it said.
The report covers significant audit findings arising from the “compliance audit” of financial transactions relating to 29 ministries (excluding Union Territories without legislatures) and five constitutional bodies under the Union government secretariat.
The CAG said that though the Embassy of India in China incurred “significant expenditure” on repairs and maintenance of 16 residential units constructed in 2011 in the New Chancery Premises, six units had become uninhabitable within 10-13 years.
“Delay in carrying out necessary comprehensive repairs/renovation of these six vacant units resulted in avoidable rental outgo of Rs 3.22 crore (up to February 2025),” it said.
The mission also continued to pay heating charges for the Old Chancery Premises, which was not in use since 2014, leading to “wasteful expenditure of Rs 74 lakh during the period 2015-16 to 2024-25,” the statement said.
Additionally, the Embassy of India in Copenhagen, Denmark, had “not adhered to the rental ceiling fixed by the Ministry of External Affairs” for leased accommodation for its officials, resulting in excess expenditure of Rs 99.12 lakh, it said.
The statement further said that a “delay” by both the Embassy of India in Tel Aviv, Israel and the Ministry of External Affairs in undertaking pre-acquisition activities and according administrative approval and financial sanction for acquisition within the extended timeline led to the “termination of the deal and thereby, rendered expenditure of Rs 92.01 lakh towards professional/legal services associated to pre-acquisition activities unfruitful”.
The audit body also noted that the MEA “retained the unutilised space at Akbar Bhawan, New Delhi for 15 months without formalising pro-rata license fees” with the New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC), resulting in “excess expenditure of Rs 27.43 crore towards licence fee for unutilised space”. (PTI)
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