What happened
A sweeping CAG performance audit of Manipur's public finances catalogued the kind of failures usually associated with movie villains in their planning phase. The Tourism Department spent over ₹1,100 crore over five years; ₹16.83 crore worth of infrastructure simply sits idle, including the marquee ₹6.35 crore light-and-sound installation that was inaugurated and then never made any light or any sound. The Tribal Affairs Department awarded 19 construction contracts worth ₹48.06 crore without bothering to collect performance guarantees, gifting contractors ₹2.4 crore in undue benefit and the state nothing to claim back when the projects underperform. The Building and Other Construction Workers welfare board collected ₹101.15 crore in labour cess, transferred only ₹63.61 crore, and managed to issue ₹16.08 crore in cheques that then bounced. Inside the welfare database, 433 beneficiaries had been assigned multiple registration numbers despite identical personal details. As of March 2023, more than 11,800 audit paragraphs across departments remained pending — which, helpfully, suggests the state has heard about audits but has not yet decided what to do about them.