Bhubaneswar: The latest report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) on the state finances for FY 2019-20 took a dig at several departments which floundered in furnishing details of the usage of funds allocated to them.
The audit report claimed that several departments failed to submit utilisation certificates (UCs) to the government raising doubts about assurance of funds for these departments.
The CAG report claimed that the Panchayati Raj and Drinking Water department failed to submit UCs to the tune of Rs 13,753.25 crore. The department had been entrusted with the task of handling works like rural housing schemes and drinking water projects.
About defaulting nature of the departments, the CAG report said that besides the Panchayati Raj department and several other key departments also faulted on the issue, “Five major defaulting departments that had not submitted UCs are: Panchayati Raj and Drinking Water (Rs 13,753.25 crore), Housing and Urban Development (Rs 6,463.83 crore), Planning and Convergence (Rs 2,963.17 crore), School and Mass Education (Rs 2,961.14 crore) and Health and Family Welfare (Rs 2,553.17 crore),” the audit report said.
The audit report claimed that non-submission of the UCs meant that there were administrative failures and authorities failed to explain as to how funds were spent over the years.
“There is also no assurance that the intended objectives of providing these funds have been achieved. Since non-submission of UCs is fraught with the risk of misappropriation, it is imperative that the state government should monitor this aspect closely and hold the persons accountable to submission of UCs in a timely manner,” the CAG report said.
UCs for an amount aggregating Rs 36,193.89 crore remained outstanding against 36 departments.
PNN