Patna: The Controller and Auditor General (CAG) of the country has presented its report in Bihar Assembly today. According to this report, the amount of 46 thousand crore was left lying due to not being able to spend by the departments of the Government of Bihar. The CAG has presented its report for the year 2017-18. In this, the details of the loss caused to the government due to the negligence of the officials have been given. Not only this, but the CAG report also records the loss caused to the government due to the disturbances in the distribution of power from the delay in the grant of grants to the panchayats.
Apart from this, the report of the Controller and Auditor General has revealed that there were 12 medical colleges to be opened in the last 10 years in Bihar, but during this time only two medical colleges could be opened.
The Bihar State Road Transport Corporation has not provided the accounts for 32 years. The CAG in its report has questioned the manner of functioning of public sector undertakings in Bihar. According to the CAG, there are a total of 32 government companies and 3 statutory corporations in Bihar which are functional. Out of this, Bihar State Financial Corporation and Bihar State Warehousing Corporation did not give audit for one year. At the same time, Bihar State Road Transport Corporation has not given an audit for 32 years. If you mean the audit report in general terms, then these undertakings did not keep an audit report of their expenditure and income in front of the Legislature. There are a total of seven profit-making enterprises in Bihar but due to the absence of any dividend policy by the state government, these enterprises are not giving their profits to the government. In the year 2015-16, Bihar State Road Development Corporation Limited gave 5 crores out of its profit of 93.86 crores and Bihar State Bridge Corporation paid only 1.05 crore dividend out of its profit of 70 crores 26 lakh to the government. According to the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission Regulation 2014, both the power distribution companies have suffered a total electricity bill of 115.23 crore due to lack of proper management of power distribution.
Highlights of the CAG Report
44 departments of the state were able to spend only 140947.00 crores out of the total budget of 187344.00 crores for the year 2017-18. 7760 inspection reports related to the financial case of 281420.43 crores were kept pending for 1 year to 8 years.
In Gram Panchayats, 56 percent of posts of Panchayat Secretary are vacant. While 62 percent of posts in municipalities are vacant. Due to carelessness, two urban bodies suffered a loss of Rs 6 crore 98 lakh on the purchase of dustbins.
During the evaluation of the tender for the purchase of LED light, the Municipal Council Arwal did not deliberately take the tenders of the lowest rate during the evaluation of the tender. An amount of Rs 50.33 lakh was paid more than this.
There was a delay of 11 to 261 days in the transfer of grants to gram panchayats from 2015 to 2018. Due to this, the Panchayati Raj Department paid an amount of 8.12 crore to the gram panchayats as penal interest.
Due to the non-fulfillment of conditions by the Bihar government, the three-tier Panchayati Raj Institutions of 2016-18 could not get the amount of 878.56 crores.
Expenditure of 1.98 crore was wasted by the education department withholding of Aadhaar digitization of children.
2.89 crore embezzlement occurred due to disregard of financial rules. Due to the failure of the municipal corporations to take the electricity duty exemption, an amount of 5.14 crore had to be paid more. These departments spent an average of 40 per cent of the total budget in the month of March alone, compared to the 11 months of the financial year.
Government officials and employees committed embezzlement due to the negligence of the District Welfare Officer of the Backward Classes and the Backward Classes Welfare Department. The hostels whose renovations were spent in Begusarai, Banka and Ara cost Rs 3.47 crore. On examining them, the buildings were found to be damaged. Executive engineers had given the report of the completion of the renovation work of the hostels to the department, but no action was taken from the department level. When the CAG pointed this out, action has been taken by marking officers at the departmental level in the investigation.
A case of embezzlement of Rs 2.89 crore has been reported in the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Welfare Department. According to the report, the cashier transferred the amount of the stipend of the children to his personal bank account of Rs 1.43 crore and the District Welfare Officer Banka was not aware of it. Similarly, the case of disturbance of Rs 1.46 crore has also been exposed by ignoring the rules in the financial system of the department.
https://cag.gov.in/ag/bihar/en/audit-report/details/113420
