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| UCs involving Rs 6,685.19 cr pending in autonomous bodies | | High pendency fraught with risk of misappropriation as past Govt's found ostracising the matter | | Peerzada Ummer
Early Times Report
Jammu, Mar 9: A total of more than 1400 Utilization Certificates of funds involving whooping amount of Rs 6,685.19 crore from various Autonomous Bodies/authorities of Jammu and Kashmir government are pending, raising suspicion about the way the funds have been spent by them.
Documents in possession of Early Times reveal that a total number of 1,414 Utilization Certificates (UCs) involving Rs 6,685.19 crore were outstanding and that out of the 1,414 outstanding UCs, 342 UCs amounting to Rs 1,771.31 crore were outstanding for more than one year and 527 UCs amounting to Rs 1,654.31 crore were outstanding for more than two years. Majority of the outstanding UCs are awaited from Education Department (Rs 3,191.99 crore), Housing and Urban Department (Rs 1,136.30 crore), Health and Family Welfare Department (Rs 650.74 crore). Preliminary inquiry has observed that there is no assurance that the money was actually incurred for the intended purpose. High pendency of UCs is fraught with the risk of misappropriation of funds and fraud, as per scrutiny of the done in the past.
Autonomous Bodies/authorities not having sufficient resources of their own are assisted financially by the Government through release of Grants-in-Aid (GIA) to be spent on specific purposes.
Financial Rules provide that for the grants provided for specific purposes, Utilization Certificates (UCs) should be obtained by the departmental officers from the grantees and after verification, these should be forwarded to the Accountant General (A&E), Jammu and Kashmir within 18 months from the date of their sanction, unless specified otherwise.
Certification audit of accounts of Autonomous Bodies (AB’s) set up by the State Government is conducted under Section 19(3) and 20(1) of Comptroller and Auditor General of India (DPC) Act 1971. The autonomous bodies coming under the audit purview is required to submit the annual accounts to audit before 30 June every year. However, there were delays ranging between two to 23 years for submitting of the annual records to the audit before June 30 every year.
Non-submission/delay in submission of accounts by these Bodies receiving substantial funding from the State Budget is a serious financial irregularity persisting for years. The report conducted into the mater recently found out that Statutory Bodies have not so far been presented to the State Legislature, as required under the Statutes under which these Bodies were created. Delay/Arrears in finalization of accounts carries the risk of financial irregularities going undetected and entails possibility of fraud and mis-appropriation.
As per the reports coming to the fore, such an action by these autonomous bodies has also deprived the State Legislature the opportunity to get feedback on their activities and financial performance. |
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