The report of the Comptroller Auditor General of India (CAG) was tabled in Bihar assembly on the last day of the winter session. It has lodged its discontent over non-production of records by authorities on several occasions.
The CAG report has pointed out that during a span of last eight years, there were 6,638 inspection reports (IRs) involving 38 departments with a financial implication of Rs, 2,14,493.88 crore.
It further stated: “Non-production of records severely limits the exercise of CAG’s constitutional mandate and may result in lack of accountability by State Government functionaries and concealment of fraud, misappropriation, embezzlement etc”.
The State Government is urged to take appropriate action including flagging of individual instances of non-production of records from a vigilance angle and initiation of disciplinary action against the concerned officials.
It was pin-pointed that despite repeated efforts, records requisitioned by the Audit teams were not made available and replies to audit memos issued during audit were not provided in many cases.
In Performance Audit (PA) on Mukhyamantri Kshetra Vikas Yojana, functioning of Primary Health Centres, implementation of RTE, 2009 and Thematic Audit (TA) on implementation of Post-Matric Scholarship Scheme certain records requisitioned by Audit were incomplete.
The Principal Accountant General (Audit), Bihar conducts periodical inspection of Government Departments by test-check of transactions and verifies the maintenance of important accounting and other records as per the prescribed rules and procedures.
These inspections are followed by issue of Audit Inspection Reports (IRs) to the head of the office with request to furnish replies within four weeks. When important irregularities, etc., detected during audit inspection are not settled on the spot, these IRs are issued to the heads of offices inspected, with copies to next higher authorities.
