SHILLONG, Sep 17: The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), in its State Finance Report, has stated that “persistent delay in finalisation of account is fraught with the risk of fraud and leakage of public money going undetected”.
The remark comes as the Autonomous District Councils (ADCs) in the state have utilised only little over Rs 300 crore out of a total amount of Rs 500 crore received as grant (central and state) for implementation of various developmental schemes during the period 2015-16 to 2019-20, as per the report.
In layman’s terms, the ADCs have not submitted the utilisation certificate pertaining to grant summing up to Rs 302.13 crore out of the sanction of Rs 567.71 crore.
The CAG has recommended that the “government may hold the concerned persons accountable for submission of utilisation certificates in a timely manner and review further disbursal of grants to defaulting departments”.
It has suggested the state government to advise the ADCs to finalise the arrear accounts and submit the same to the Accountant General.
As per the CAG report, out of the total grant of Rs 567.71 crore received between 2015 and 2020, the ADCs utilised only Rs 302.13 crore or 53 per cent of the total allotted fund.
“Non-submission of funds means that the authorities have not explained as to how funds were spent over the years or they were not spent. The ADCs be advised to submit their pending utilisation certificate,” the report said.
The CAG said that as per rules of Jaintia Hills Autonomous District Council and Garo Hills Autonomous District Council, the annual accounts were supposed to be submitted to the Accountant General (Audit) by June 30 of every year. However, it said that no prescribed date was mentioned in the fund rules of the Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council.
Cases of misappropriation, loss of govt money
The Meghalaya government has reported as many as 72 cases of theft, misappropriation and loss involving government money amounting to Rs 1.15 crore till March 2020, on which final action was pending, a report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) placed on the floor of the House on Friday said.
Out of the 72 cases, two cases pertaining to the legislative assembly corresponded to the highest portion of the amount of misappropriation/losses/heft of government material i.e., Rs 0.44 crore.
Some random replies on only certain portions of appendices to these reports were sent by some departments after placing of these Reports in the Legislative Assembly, the CAG report said.
