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| Estates deptt 'hushing up' Rs 2.44 cr fraud | | | Ishtiyaq Ahmad
Early Times Report
Srinagar, Feb 4:Estates department is trying to hide glaring irregularities in the department under the carpet as despite the lapse of three years, it has failed to act on the Accountant General (Audit) report in which items worth Rs 2.44 crore were found missing from the Jammu store.
The official sources revealed that the operation 'cover up' is on to protect influential officials/ officers of the department who were posted here from time to time and were directly involved in this matter.
According to the official sources, soon after the shortage of material was detected by the AG's audit in the month of December 2012, a committee was constituted that was headed by an Executive Engineer of Estates Department. "It was decided that the action would be taken on the basis of report of this committee. The AG's audit observed that finished material worth Rs 2.44 crore was found short in the store of estates Jammu. The inventory shown by the department did not match with the ground balance. The report of the audit was sent to the estates department for their reply. The department then constituted a committee but even after the lapse of more than two years the committee has not finalized the report to pin point fixing of the responsibility," one of the officials of the department insisted not to be named said.
The estates department in Jammu province is headed by deputy director stores on whose behest all such purchases of varieties of items is made.
According to the sources the deputy directors who were posted over the years cannot escape the responsibility of such a high magnitude shortage in the stores.
The sources revealed that the department which was established in 1968 has never bothered to conduct physical verification at the close of the financial year to know if any discrepancies exist in the stock inventory which is mandatory for any government store.
It was seen during the audit of the handing and taking over of the store records that the store items as reflected in the books of the stores were not found on ground.
As a result, the balances of store items found short were not carried forward in the stock registers maintained after the handing and taking over of the store records.
Sources said that lack of internal control system such as annual physical verification of stores had created loopholes in the effective management of stores and consequently led to suspected misappropriation of store items of Rs 2.44 crore.
When contacted, Director Estates, he said, "We have constituted a verification committee headed by an Executive Engineer and further action would be taken on the basis of report of this committee.
He, however, failed to specify any time-frame for completion of task by the verification committee. This indicates that dilly-dallying approach is still being adopted in dealing with the issue. |
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