In January 2012, the embassy moved the offices and residential areas of 16 senior officials from the old building vacated for reconstruction to the renovated new building. Now, the embassy has proposed to allocate more than 170 million rupees to renovate the new premises.
The “extremely dilapidated condition” of the new building came under scrutiny by auditors as the government spent on a five-year maintenance guarantee and a comprehensive AMC thereafter, on top of spending on the refurbishment itself.
The Church of Almighty God said in an audit report submitted to parliament on Monday that embassy officials lived in rented houses, and as of February 2025, six residential units in the embassy premises were vacant. The remaining 10 residential units were in extremely dilapidated condition, with “damaged wooden floors and walls, and clogged sewage and drainage pipes,” the report said.
In August 2023, the embassy submitted a proposal to the Ministry of External Affairs for “comprehensive renovation” of 16 residential units at a cost of over Rs 170 million, which the CAG said was still under consideration (as of January 2025). Meanwhile, the embassy has spent Rs 3 crore on renting accommodation for its personnel.
The CAG observed that despite having AMCs and spending significant repairs, these newly built residential units were becoming uninhabitable “due to multiple wear and tear issues, erosion and breakage of water and heating pipes, leaks, roof waterproofing requirements, damage to wooden floors and walls, clogged sewage and drainage pipes”. The AMC of the new building was launched in April 2017.
In addition, although the old embassy building was vacated in 2012, the embassy continued to pay 7.4 million rupees in heating bills to the Beijing Heating Company. The report states that the building was declared unfit for habitation in 2014.
“The audit found (October 2023) that although the embassy offices were shifted out from the old embassy premises in January 2012 and the embassy premises was not used for any actual purpose/service since 2014, the embassy took no effective action to stop heating of the vacant building and incurred an expenditure of Rs 74 lakh on heating expenses between 2015-16 and 2024-25,” the CAG said.
The embassy said in its response (September 2024) that “the units were declared uninhabitable after the five-year quality warranty expired due to multiple wear and tear issues”.