Unanswered
Audit Observations Amount To 15,100
Kapil
Dave | TNN
Ahmedabad: Gujarat chief
minister Narendra Modi may rake up corruption as a poll plank to put
Congress-led UPA government in the dock,but his government has not responded to
over 5,000 queries and 15,100 audit observations posed by the Comptroller and
Auditor General (CAG).
The unanswered CAG queries across
departments,if quantified,pertain to suspected irregularities to the tune of Rs
9,000 crore.A senior official at the office of Principal Accountant General
(PAG),Ahmedabad,said PAG has dashed off a reminder to the chief secretary as
well as all department heads concerned.In the last three years,the number of
unreplied queries has increased substantially, said the official.
As per the last civil audit report
of accountant general submitted on March 30,2012,the state government has not
entertained queries on revenue receipts,inspection reports and audit
observations across departments ranging from VAT, ports,transport,
industry,mines and revenue,just to name a few.
As per the Rule 14 of the Gujarat
Finance Rules,1971,the state government is expected to respond to CAG queries
before the end of the financial year in question.But the Gujarat government has
not responded to queries that date back to 2009-10.
CAG,in its last report submitted to
the state government in March 2012,has noted,We recommend that the government
may take suitable steps to implement an effective procedure for prompt and
appropriate response to audit observations as well as take actions against
officials /officers who failed to send replies to the inspection
reports/paragraphs as per the prescribed time schedule and also failed to take
action to recover outstanding demand in a time bound manner.
When contacted,chief secretary A K
Joti said,These queries need to be answered by the department heads
concerned.The chief secretary has no role in it as it is the additional chief
secretary (finance) who co-ordinates with CAG officials.We follow the system
which is in place since 1950.
