Bhubaneswar: Despite repeated reminders, the government has not taken action on serious faults and irregularities involving Rs 964.33 crore pointed out by Comptroller and Accountant General (CAG).
In its report on general and social sector audit, the CAG said it has conducted an audit of government departments to check for compliance to rules and regulations in transactions and verify the regularity in the maintenance of important accounting and other records as per prescribed rules and procedures.
Important irregularities and other issues detected during inspection, which are not settled on the spot, find a place in IRs. Serious irregularities are brought to the notice of the government by the office of the Accountant General.
As per the Regulations on Audit & Accounts, 2007, the officer-in-charge of the audited entity shall send the reply to an Inspection Report (IR) within four weeks of its receipt and the government should send a preliminary report to audit within six weeks of receipt of intimation. However, government officials are not responding to the audit finding which is in violation of the regulation.
The auditor found that 9,997 inspection reports comprising 47,425 paragraphs relating to 3,204 offices of 24 departments had remained outstanding up to the end of June 2018.
The CAG office has received replies only in case of 107 out of 420 inspection reports issued from April 2017 to March 2018 relating to 19 departments.
The unsettled reports contained 905 paragraphs involving serious irregularities like theft, defalcation, misappropriation of government money, loss of revenue and shortages, losses not recovered/ written off amounting to Rs 964.34 crore, it said.
