‘927 Inspection Reports involving Rs 2266 cr remained outstanding’
ATNs about 88 audit paragraphs pending for yrs together
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, May 1: Conveying serious concern over unexpected and dilly-dallying response of the departments to the Inspection Reports and other findings, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has asked the Government of Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir to ensure regular meetings of Audit Committees to monitor the progress and for strict compliance of the rules and procedures.
The Principal Accountant General (Audit), Jammu and Kashmir conducts periodical inspection of the Government departments to test-check the transactions, verify the maintenance of important accounts and other records as prescribed in the rules and procedures.
These inspections are followed up with the Inspection Reports (IRs) incorporating findings, which are issued to the Heads of the offices inspected with copies to the next higher authorities for taking prompt corrective action. The Head of the office is required to take necessary corrective action on the observations contained in the IRs, rectify the defects and omissions and report compliance through initial reply to the PAG (Audit) within four weeks from the date of receipt of the IRs. Serious financial irregularities are required to be reported to the Head of the Department and the Government.
However, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has pointed out that Inspection Reports issued up to December 2019 in respect of State Taxes, State Excise, Motor Vehicle and Law Department disclosed that 5,006 paragraphs relating to 927 IRs, involving Rs 2,266.10 crore remained outstanding at the end of June 2020.
In June 2018, 811 IRs were pending for settlement, 859 IRs were pending for settlement in June 2019 and 927 IRs were pending in June 2020. Similarly, 4111 audit observations were outstanding in June 2018, 4539 in June 2019 and 5006 in June 2020.
“Audit did not receive any replies from the Heads of offices within four weeks from the date of issue of all the 82 IRs issued during 2019-20. This large pendency of the IRs due to non-receipt of the replies is indicative of the fact that the Heads of offices and the Departments did not initiate action to rectify the defects, omissions and irregularities pointed out by the PAG (Audit) through the IRs”, the CAG said, adding “5,119 paragraphs relating to 945 IRs involving Rs 2,304.96 crore remaining outstanding at the end of the year 2019-20 indicated that adequate steps were not taken by the departments resulting in increase of the outstanding IRs and Paragraphs”.
In the month of January 2021, the Government constituted Audit Committee for the HoDs falling under the administrative control of Finance Department, J&K for the purpose of monitoring and ensuring compliance and settlement of outstanding Audit Observations/ Paras in terms of Regulation 145 of the Regulations on Audit and Accounts 2020 issued by the CAG of India.
The CAG has now recommended that the Government should advise the concerned departments to hold Audit Committee meetings frequently at least three meetings in a quarter to monitor the progress of settlement of paragraphs and also ensure that demands/recoveries are addressed in time.
It is pertinent to mention here that Finance Department had issued instructions in June 1997 to all the administrative departments to furnish suo-moto Action Taken Notes (ATNs) on all the audit paragraphs featuring in the Audit Reports to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) irrespective of whether they were taken up for discussion by the Committee or not.
These ATNs were to be submitted to the Committee duly vetted by the Principal Accountant General (Audit) within a period of three months from the date of presentation of Audit Reports in the Legislature. It was, however, noticed that out of 110 audit paragraphs featuring in the Chapters of Revenue Sector of Audit Reports from 2000-01 to 2015-167, suo-moto ATNs in respect of 88 audit paragraphs had not been received up to March 31, 2020.
The auditable entities under various departments are categorised into high, medium and low risk units according to their revenue position, past trends of the audit observations and other parameters. The annual audit plan is prepared on the basis of risk analysis which inter-alia includes critical issues in Government Revenues and Tax administration. During the year 2019-20, there were 398 auditable units (State Taxes, Excise, Transport and Law) out of which 129 (32 per cent) units were planned for audit and 82 units (64 per cent) were audited, the CAG has pointed out.
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