Mustansir
Srinagar, Nov17: The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has pulled up the Jammu and Kashmir Government for failing to submit 2,931 Utilisation Certificates amounting to over Rs 2,118 crore to the Centre. CAG has said such fiscal indiscipline will affect the flow of funds to the State in future.
"A total number of 2,931 Utilisation Certificates amounting to Rs 2,118 crore were outstanding as of 31st March 2012," CAG report on State finances for the year ended 31st of March 2012, said. The report said, of these, UCs amounting to Rs 1,727 crore were outstanding for more than one year.
"It was as high as 7.4 per cent of the total expenditure incurred in 2011-12 and requires close monitoring", CAG report said. According to rules, for grants provided for specific purpose, UCs should be obtained by the departmental officers and after verification, these should be forwarded to Accountant General within 18 months from the date of their sanction unless specified otherwise, the report said.
Terming it a "lacklustre attitude", the CAG said pendency of submission of UCs was bound to affect flow of the funds to these agencies in future. CAG strongly recommends timely submission of UCs in respect of the grants released for specific purposes to the grantee institutions.
It may be recalled that the Utilisation Certificates in respect of 2,584 work items amounting to Rs 1,752.44 crore were outstanding as of March 2011.
According to CAG report, the power Department had not formulated the State Electricity Policy and State Electricity Plan. The transmission and distribution losses were very high at the level of 56.76 percent (2011-12).The transmission losses ranged between 4.43 and 8.14 per cent against CEA norms of four per cent. The time overrun in completion of 40 projects ranged between three and 48 months at the cost overrun of Rs 113.43 crore was noticed in 23 projects".
The report said, "although 85 per cent households were electrified as per Census 2011 figures, the number of households covered by properly functional meters were far less as evidence by the huge gap between expenditure on purchase of power by the Department and its receipts.
CAG repport further added, "Due to non-maintenance of Gird discipline the Department had to bear the burden of payment of Unscheduled interchange charges to the extent of Rs 1,405.65 crore for delayed payment of these charges.
Indecision on the part of the department for evacuation of power from the Thein dam hydro electric power project for the last three decades resulted in non-utilization of 220 KV double circuit Thein-Hiranagar transmission line and consequent idle investment of Rs 25.73 crore".
"Audit recommends that the State government should review the agreement (January 1979) with Punjab Government for sharing power and irrigation water share of Ranjit Sagar Dam (Thein Dam) project on river Ravi, signed by then Chief Minister of the two States, at the highest level after conducting a rigorous cost benefit analysis to find out the financial impact of the acceptance of the deviations in the agreement sought by the Punjab Government, considering the overall cost of Power procured by the State from alternative sources".
The report revealed, "State's Own Deficit continues to be high as there was 63 percent dependence of State budget on non-debt resources from the Central Government during 2011-12". "There are many deficiencies in Industries department including unplanned execution of industrial estates/ growth centres, leading to unproductive investments, inadmissible and irregular payment of subsidies, Vat reimbursement and irregular exemption of toll tax" observed the report. |
