Autonomous bodies of the Government of India do not seem to be bothered by comments or observations of the comptroller and Auditor General of India, if the report for the year ended March 2007 is any indication. Several anomalies of the bodies have been listed, pertaining to earlier years, but little or no corrections have been made. The report tabled in Parliament this year says in 2006-07 there were 264 central autonomous bodies whose accounts were to be certified under CAG rules and Government of India released Rs. 8468.27 crores towards grants and Rs 0.40 crores towards loans to 241 bodies during 2006-07. Information on the amount of government grants released to the remaining 23 bodies were not available.
Grants amounting to Rs. 2249.63 crores (26.56 percent of total grants were disbursed by HRD Ministry to 66 educational institutions, Rs. 1233.34 crores (14.56 percent of total grants) were disbursed by Health and Family welfare Ministry to 23 health and research institutions and Rs. 420.96 crores (4.97 percent of total grants were disbursed by Commerce Ministry to six autonomous bodies.
Accounts for 2005-06 of 262 central bodies were to be made available for audit by June 2006 and audited accounts were to be placed before Parliament by 31 December 2006. Of these only 93 bodies submitted their accounts for audit within the stipulated time. The accounts of 13 bodies were not submitted by the concerned organizations, even till November 2007.
Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts suspended construction work of its building project in November 2000. Though the remaining had not started as of May 2007, it continued to employ 17 persons in the building project cell. While services of five of them were discontinued during June 2005 and April 2007 and another two adjusted against vacant posts, the remaining ten were continued for over five years without any work and resulted in wasteful expenditure of Rs. 89.69 lakhs on their pay and allowances between 2003 and 2007.
Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority under Ministry of Finance (Department of Economic Affairs) appointed two whole-time members as consultant and advisor respectively immediately after completion of their tenure with the Authority in violation of the norms and in one case in breach of propriety. The Authority also paid high monthly remuneration of Rs. 1.19 lakh and Rs 0.45 lakh to them in disregard of a ceiling of Rs. 26,000 per month fixed by Government of India, resulting in undue benefit of Rs. 16.89 lakh and Rs. 1.14 lakhs respectively. Another case listed in the CAG report pertains to Chittranjan National Cancer Institute Kolkata a regional cancer centre under Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and functions as an advanced institute catering to treatment training education and research in oncology in eastern India. The poor management of the Institute has led to deficient patient care services. A thorough revamping and overhauling of the Institute is necessary for better patient care services, including provision of beds for in patients taken seriously ill.
Also on the list of bad bargains has been Jamia Millia Islamia and Delhi University. Jamia deposited Rs. 2.08 crores with Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority in April 2002 being 10 percent of a total premium of Rs. 20.81 crores for 100 acres of land allotted to it by the latter. The University did not pay the next installment of 20 percent within the stipulated 90 days. Despite its inability of raising the resource for further payment, the University failed to ask for refund of the deposited premium of Rs. 2.08 crores within 90 days of allotment, which resulted not only in cancellation of land allotment, but forfeiture of deposited amount of Rs. 2.08 crores. On a lesser scale, Delhi University incurred losses for itself. Despite the assurance by Ministry of HRD to Public Accounts Committee and its subsequent directions to University Grants Commission and Delhi University to recover transport allowance irregularly paid to its employees who were provided accommodation within the campus housing their places of work and residence in violation of the orders of the Government, the University continued to pay inadmissible transport allowance to its employees for the past nine years. It irregularly paid transport allowance adding up to Rs. 84.62 lakhs to 424 employees during the year under review.
With regard to Prasar Bharati Ministry of Information and Broadcasting CA has said negligence by Prasar Bharati in not limiting the claims with reference to the reduced time during which the one day cricket matches were actually played resulted in over payment of Rs. 3.39 crores to Board of Control for Cricket in India for India Sri Lanka and India South Africa one day internationals in October November 2005. Furthermore, as per the memorandum of understanding signed between Prasar Bharati and National Film Development Corporation for supply of films by the latter for telecasts, payment for repeat telecast had to be calculated on the sliding scale of 50 and 25 percent for the second and third repeat telecasts respectively. Since Prasar Bharati did not maintain film wise data of telecast of films, it made payment to NFDC without reference to their telecasts in a number of cases. This resulted in excess payment of Rs. 58.35 lakhs to NFDC from December 2003 to May 06 which was recovered in March 2007.
Prasar Bharati didnot obtain bank guarantee from Asia Pacific Broadcasting Union (APBU) against advance payments made in foreign currency and thereby violated the provisions of Foreign Exchange Management Act. Subsequent undue delay in obtaining approval to the waiver of the bank guarantee from Finance Ministry led to avoidable interest payment of Rs. 27.40 lakhs to APBU.
Autonomous bodies under Ministry of Shipping have also been under the CAG scanner. Cochin Port Trust levied demurrage on a consignment of imported cargo at a rate lower than that prescribed in the scale of rates for such imports at the request of the importer resulting in revenue loss of Rs. 2.59 crores. For construction, operation and management of a berth for cargo handling operation in Haldia Dock complex Kolkata Port Trust executed a license agreement with a private company for 30 years but charged a lower rate of royalty on cargo handling charges, sustaining a revenue loss of Rs. 1.46 crores till April 2007, and will do so till May 2008. The report has compiled a total of losses that the autonomous bodies have made in the year under review.
Printed and Published by Mr. Vikram Bhardwaj, on behalf of
Shibani Dasgupta
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