It is a travesty that physical verification of several projects and works at hand in Jammu and Kashmir should reveal that all was not going well and financial indiscipline was galore which gave space to several lacunas and more travesty is that District Development Commissioners and other concerned officers have taken no pains at all to take corrective measures , bring about rectifications, and furnish Action Taken Report to higher authorities after having been provided with the findings as a result of such verifications undertaken. Imagine a scenario when there would be nothing of the sort of physical verifications of the projects and inspection of books and expenditures etc, what could be the fate of such projects in terms of quality, speed of work and adhering to timelines. Perhaps rather surely, perceiving such an eventuality being a possibility, to circumvent which and to deter potential committers of irregularities, the institution of audits, inspections and physical verification as a measure of necessary checks and balances are prescribed as a non optional requirement. The more stringent it is, the more are chances of better results and smooth sailing of the works and projects.
Field functionaries of the Economics and Statistics Directorate at the instance of the Finance Department, conducted physical verifications to judge the levels of most sought after institutionalised system of transparency and accountability as also how properly the projects were managed only to see that all was not very well, reflecting many a lacuna at various levels and submitted its such findings. The findings have revealed, inter-alia, that there were no authorisation or approvals from the Administrative authorities, there were tendering irregularities, no technical approval and go ahead approvals were found and as usual non -adherence of timelines at all levels had taken place. Expecting that the District Development Commissioners would take up corrective measures, such findings of the field functionaries were sent to them for that purpose, however, at that level too, nothing of the sort of corrective measures were taken and as such no Action Taken Report had been received from these authorities. In other words, it only defeated the intention and the purpose of conducting such inspections and physical verifications.
As the ways of the conventional administrative approach of “taking serious notes” are evident, Financial Commissioner has again issued detailed instructions to all the concerned officers for “strict compliance” and adherence in time bound manner. We trust, prior to these instructions, there were already enough guidelines and procedures to be adopted which were advised from time to time, yet non adherence and non compliance pointed to there being still no mechanism to fix responsibility and accountability and that the same mores were deep rooted in the administrative system. The cautions and don’ts are compromised with ease which did not augur well and merited something beyond issuing newer and fresher instructions and guidelines only.
Finance Department is the Nodal Department for such monitoring as it is otherwise dealing with the very critical area of finances and is within its rights to adopt all means and ways to ensure that financial discipline was observed at all costs for which proper and structured mechanism was required to be set up where each and every Rupee spent was bound to be not only utilised in whole but utilised in such a way so as to get maximum benefits which meant preparing and building projects with speed, quality, standard, proper technical and financial approval sans any wastages, pilferages or any other irregularity. That calls for inspecting projects randomly and surprisingly in such a way that all the projects were covered under such verification number of times and on each successive verification, stress must be laid on what action had been taken on the last findings. Back to back verifications and according utmost importance to Action Taken Report is a compulsory prerequisite of a healthy financial and procedural system.
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