Action Taken Notes not being submitted timely
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, July 21: In a testimony of taking the findings of Comptroller and Auditor General of India casually, the Government has made recoveries of only Rs 16.77 crore as against whopping Rs 1112 crore pointed out by the supreme audit institution of the country. Moreover, several Administrative Secretaries have been soft-paddling on furnishing replies in response to Performance Audits and other Audit Paragraphs.
The audit process by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India starts with the risk assessment of various departments, autonomous bodies, schemes and projects which takes into account the criticality, complexity of activities, level of delegated financial powers, internal controls and concerns of stakeholders and previous audit findings.
Based on this risk assessment, the frequency and extent of audit are decided and audit findings are then shared with the concerned departments for furnishing replies within the stipulated time-frame and taking recommended corrective measures.
The audit findings involving recoveries that come to the fore during scrutiny of the accounts of the departments are referred to various departmental Drawing and Disbursing Officers (DDOs) for confirmation and further necessary action.
During the year 2015-16, recoveries to the tune of Rs 1112.11 crore were pointed out by the CAG— Rs 155.20 crore in the audit report and Rs 956.91 crore in inspection reports. These recoveries were confirmed by the Drawing and Disbursing Officers for initiating necessary follow-up action. However, when the time of showing performance came the concerned departments started adopting casual approach.
This can be gauged from the figures, which reveal that against Rs 1112.11 crore worth recoveries pointed out by CAG the Government has made recovery of merely Rs 16.77 crore thereby showing disrespect towards the supreme audit institution of the country. “Keeping in view the dismal scenario vis-à-vis affecting recoveries when the entire amount pointed out by the CAG would be recovered from the concerned departments remains a million dollar question”, official sources said.
“The casual approach towards the findings of CAG doesn’t end here only as several Administrative Secretaries have also been found involved in non-cooperation on other important matters”, sources said while disclosing that in the last few years the audit has reported on several significant deficiencies in implementation of various programmes and activities as well as on the quality of internal controls in selected departments which have negative impact on the success of programmes and functioning of the departments.
The focus was on auditing specific programmes/schemes in order to offer suitable recommendations to the executive for taking corrective action and improving service delivery to the citizens. The draft Audit Paragraphs proposed for inclusion in the report of CAG are forwarded by the Accountant General (Audit) to the Principal Secretaries of the departments concerned drawing their attention to the audit findings and requesting them to send their response within six weeks.
“Three Performance Reports, one follow-up audit and 35 paragraphs proposed to be included in the report of CAG for the year ended March 31, 2016 were sent to the Principal Secretaries/ Secretaries of the respective departments. However, replies in respect of one Performance Audit and 19 paragraphs were not furnished”, sources said.
In this way, several Administrative Secretaries have ignored the Handbook of Instructions for speedy settlement of audit observations issued by the Finance Department, which provides for prompt response by the executive to ensure remedial/rectification action in compliance with the prescribed rules and procedures.
To ensure accountability of the executive to issues dealt with in various audit reports, the State Government had issued instructions to the administrative departments for furnishing suo-moto Action Taken Notes (ATNs) on all audit paragraphs to the Public Accounts Committee/Committee on Public Undertakings irrespective of whether these are taken up for discussion by these committees or not.
As per the rules, these ATNs are required to be submitted to these committees duly vetted by the Accountant General (Audit) within a period of three months from the date of presentation of audit reports in the State Legislature. However, it has been noticed that out of 469 Audit Paragraphs featuring in the audit reports from 2000-01 to 2014-15 presented in the State Legislature on June 27, 2016, suo moto ATNs in respect of 176 Audit Paragraphs were not submitted with the prescribed time-frame.
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