PANAJI: In a stern note to the state Government, the Union ministry of housing and urban affairs (MoHUA) has expressed “serious concern” that of the Rs 196 crore released by the Centre in 2019 for the Panaji smart city mission, the state government has transferred just Rs 118.2 crore to Imagine Panaji smart city development limited (IPSCDL).
“If the state government is not interested in developing these cities (sic) as smart cities, the funds released by the government of India may kindly be refunded so that we may take further necessary action for deleting the names of smart cities in your state,” secretary for the union ministry, Durga Shankar Mishra, said in a letter to state chief secretary Parimal Rai, a copy of which was obtained by TOI through an RTI application.

Even worse, the Goa government, which has to contribute a matching grant to the smart city mission, has failed to release any funds to IPSCDL since January 2019, show documents obtained by

TOI

through RTI.
Mishra wrote two reminders to the state government, one in August 2019 and another in June, warning it that the progress of the smart city mission is getting hindered because of the failure to transfer the Centre’s funds and the matching grant of the state government.
With the Imagine Panaji Smart City Development Ltd (IPSCDL) functioning without a board since March 2019, the state government finally moved to reconstitute the board of directors for IPSCDL. The move to reorganise the board comes after the special purpose vehicle (SPV) ran afoul of statutory norms, which included a strike off notice by the Registrar of Companies (Goa).
In a complete violation of norms, the state government had allowed IPSCDL to function without a board for over a year. Chief minister Pramod Sawant assured the state legislative assembly on July 23 that the board would be reorganised within eight days, but the board remained defunct and the SPV’s accounts could not be finalised in time.
While reconstituting the board, the government has appointed Panaji MLA Atanasio Monserrate and Corporation of the City of Panaji (CCP) mayor Uday Madkaikar to the board.
The Smart City mission has run afoul of several audit violations including filing of returns with the Union ministry of corporate affairs. The SPV has been listed as a defaulter by the ministry of corporate affairs as it failed to file its statutory returns for 2016-17 and 2017-18, while the registrar of companies (Goa) has threatened to strike-off IPSCDL.
“IPSCDL has become an active non-compliant status company in the records of the ministry of corporate affairs,” said an official. IPSCDL will have to pay a “heavy penalty” to rectify the irregularities.
Correspondence between IPSCDL and the department of Urban Development shows that the last board meeting was held in March 2019. Documents also show that four positions on the board were vacant ever since former MLA Sidharth Kuncalienker stepped down as the director in April 2019.
The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) also conducted an audit of IPSCDL recently and raised concerns over the salary being paid to IPSCDL managing director and chief executive officer (CEO) Swayandipta Pal Chaudhuri, since his appointment had lapsed in July 2019.
“The company has also not been able to file its annual accounts, annual returns and Board’s report as per the Companies Act, 2013 as the accounts were not approved by the board and thus could not be adopted by the annual general meeting,” an official said.
Two days earlier, the government shunted out Chaudhuri and appointed commissioner for Goods and Services Tax (GST) Hemant Kumar as the new CEO of the SPV.