Irfan Tramboo
Srinagar, Apr 10: The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has identified several discrepancies in various departments including Education, Labour & Employment, Forest, Ecology and Environment as well as the Animal Husbandry ranging from non-utilization of funds to irregular expenditure as well as the non-implementation of various welfare schemes for workers.
For the Education Department, CAG in its report has pointed out that the funds were released by the State Project Director (SPD) Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) under civil works to the Directors of School Education Jammu and Kashmir without any action plan for its utilisation which resulted in blocking of Rs 21.48 crore which then remained unspent.
In this regard, CAG said, Rs 21.48 crores were released in favour of Director School Education which included Rs 9.76 crore for Jammu and Rs 11.72 crore for Kashmir with the direction not to utilise these funds till further detailed instructions were issued. “The matter was referred to Government/ Department in February 2021; their replies are awaited (October 2021),” the report stated.
With regard to the Forest, Ecology and Environment Department, the CAG report said that the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) did not survey the preparation of the Annual Plan of Operations (APOs) to collect physical data for identifying degraded forests.
It said that the site-specific schemes were not prepared by the Forest Divisions for Compensatory afforestation at sites contiguous to or in the proximity of forest in respect of forest land of 2,757.78 hectares diverted for non-forest purposes.
The report said that Rs 9.24 crore, out of a total expenditure of Rs 140.25 crore, out of CAMPA funds were spent on inadmissible components such as the purchase of office equipment, construction of office complex etc.
“There was irregular expenditure of CAMPA funds of Rs 15.12 crore on the establishment of two zoos,” it said adding that records of inspection of CAMPA works by officials of the department were not maintained.
The report has highlighted that two Wildlife Wardens prepared a Master Plan for Jamboo Zoo and Mini Zoo Pahalgam at a cost of Rs 221.00 crore and the proposals forwarded to the APCCF CAMPA, were laid before Executive Committee (EC) and Steering Committee (SC) and approved in March 2016 and June 2017 respectively.
“The SC while deliberating (August 2018) on the activities of CAMPA decided to stop further funding as CAF rules prohibit such activity. By this time Rs 15.12 crore had already been spent,” the report said.
In the Labour & Employment Department, CAG observed that the Department had failed to generate awareness among the workers which deprived this vulnerable group of claiming benefits under the Act.
“Only a small fraction of the registered workers in J&K availed benefits under a few components of the Act. The Department has entirely failed in registering the eligible migrant labourers under the Act,” it said, adding various welfare schemes meant to improve the living conditions of workers under the Act such as the Housing scheme, insurance and old-age pension were not implemented.
The CAG stated that the unspent balances on account of labour cess had increased from Rs 296.19 crore to Rs. 622.05 crores during the five-year period ended March 2020 while out of 1, 09,915 beneficiaries registered in the sampled districts up to the date of launch (June 2017) of the digitisation process, the registration records of only 27,853 workers (25 per cent) were uploaded as of September 2020.
The CAG also stated that the registrations of the labourers were made without submitting the valid age proof, employment certificates even as the Building & other Construction Workers Welfare Board (BOCWWB) failed to renew the insurance policy taken from LIC, to assist nominees/ dependents of workers on their disability/ death.
“Out of 89,800 workers recommended for microcredit facility, only 148 workers were issued credit cards and no worker had availed the credit facility as of March 2020 resulting in non-utilisation of Rs 30 crores deposited with the Bank as security. The Board failed to implement pension scheme for workers who had attained the age of 60,” the CAG said.
On the Animal Husbandry, the CAG has stated that the construction of a Poultry Breeding Farm and Hatchery project at Kupwara for subsidiary income generation of women/ weaker sections was taken up without administrative approval of the changed site while the expenditure of Rs 1.78 crore incurred thus far and the project has not yielded any benefits. “The matter was referred (March 2021) to Government/ Department; their replies were awaited (October 2021),” the CAG stated.
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