System rotting as previous ministers focussed on their kingdoms: Sudhir Mungantiwar

What is your assessment of the government purchase system in the state?
There are serious lapses. There is no mechanism to track the end users of most of the government purchases. Several departments are purchasing the same items, but independently and many times from the same suppliers who quote different rates to them. We have just started sorting out the things and our approach is multi-lateral. I have directed all departments to submit their 10 years' purchase details, along with the actual utilisations of those items. To go into the root of the issue, we have chosen three departments, each of which spent more than Rs3,000 crore in the last three years. Items lying unused in godowns, items which were never delivered, and complaints of substandard products among other details would provide us an insight.

Will you roll out a comprehensive policy for purchases to stop leakages and loot of the public exchequer?
We want to make the government purchase system so foolproof that not a single penny of the public money goes into corruption or waste. While we would wait for the finance secretary committee's recommendations to finalise long-term plans, decisions on setting up annual limits of purchase, Rs50 lakh for district level and Rs2 crore at the headquarter level, constituting central purchase board for common items, digital database of all godowns and abolishing the March 31 deadline for annual expenditure have already been taken. Now, every department will have to plan their purchases carefully and intelligently and submit the same to us before March 20 so that the finance department has enough time to review their approvals.

Why these basic measures proposed by you now were not brought in before?
The whole system rots mainly because previous ministers were extremely busy in nurturing their own kingdoms. They were busy in bhoomipujan ceremonies, party programmes and infighting. Hence, they didn't have time for governance, forget identifying the problems and fixing them. The cartel of such (Congress-NCP) ministers, who had various vested interests, sidelined their own colleagues who sought to bring anything good in the system.

Have you estimated the percentage of expenditure which goes into wastage due to irregularities in purchases, last-minute buys etc.?
I have sought 10 years' of purchase data from rate contract and tender process from all departments. We will have a clear picture soon.