Guwahati: The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has found 15 cases of fraudulent withdrawal of above Rs 54 crore in the North Cachar Autonomous Hill District Council of Assam during the 2007 and 2009 fiscal year.
The CAG in its report which was tabled in the state Assembly said the council drew the amount on various occasions without providing any details of its utilisation. The cash book and details of utilisation was not available on record, the report said.
The health and family welfare department of the council also failed to provide utilisation certificates of huge amounts spent under various health care schemes undertaken by the government during the period.
Among the other departments in which fraudulent withdrawals were detected is the Public Health Engineering under the council.
‘Control non-plan expenditure’:Meanwhile, the CAG has stressed on lesser recourse to borrowed funds by the Assam government and control on non-plan revenue expenditure while concentrating on increasing better tax and non-tax revenue.
The CAG report on the state’s finance for the fiscal 2010-11pointed that the overall revenue expenditure of the state increased by 100.35 per cent from Rs 11,456 crore in 2006-07 to Rs 22,952 in 2010-11 at an annual average rate of 20.07 per cent.
The non-Plan revenue expenditure constituted a dominant share of more that 77 per cent in the revenue expenditure and has increased by Rs 833 crore over the previous year.
Salaries and wages alone accounted for more that 45 per cent of revenue receipts of the state during the year.
During 2010-11, though the development expenditure (Rs 16,846 crore) increased by Rs 1,893 crore over the previous year, it was much below the budget estimate of Rs 22,299 crore for 2010-11.
On the other hand, revenue receipts grew by 16 per cent over the previous year, the CAG report stated.
The increase was mainly contributed to tax revenue (30 per cent) and state’s share of Union Taxes and Duties (84 per cent) offset by decrease in non-tax revenue (12 per cent) and Grants-in-aid from the Central government (2 per cent).
The CAG report suggested that the state government should mobilize additional resources by expanding the tax base and rationalizing the user charges, among other measures.
‘ There is an urgent need to improve collection of tax and non-tax revenue so that recourse to borrowed funds can be reduced,’ the report added.
The overall fiscal liabilities of the state increased at an average annual rate of 8.83 per cent during the period 2006-11. Although the ratio of fiscal liabilities to GSDP has decreased from 30.78 per cent in 2009-10 to 28.49 per cent in 2010-11, but the ration was higher that the norms of 25 per cent recommended by the 13th Finance Commission, the CAG report pointed.
It asked the state government to carefully assess recourse to borrowed funds in the future to bridge this gap.
The CAG report also advised the state government to ensure careful investment of its funds for high returns. (Agencies)