Srinagar, Feb 24 (KNS): The non-presenting of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report in the recently concluding budget session has raised many eyebrows.
On February 8, Minister of State for Finance Ajay Nanda tabled a copy of ‘Finance Accounts (Volume I) and (Volume II) for 2016-2017’. He also tabled a copy of Appropriate Accounts 2016-2017, Accounts at a Glance for 2016-17 and Annual Technical Inspection Report on Urban Local Bodies for the year ending March 31, 2016, in the Legislative Assembly.
However, the government skipped of presenting the CAG report in the recently concluded budget session, which as per the officials is mandatory. Sources said that it has happened only few times when the CAG report was not presented in the assembly.
Speaker Legislative Assembly, Kavindar Gupta told KNS over phone that they did not receive the CAG report from the government. “Government should have sent it to us so that we could have presented in the assembly. I don’t know why the report was not sent to us,” Gupta said.
While, an official of the assembly said that non-tabling of the report raises queries that government wanted to “hide” its failures. “If government has nothing to hide then why the report was not presented,” the official said.
The official said that legislators and media persons were waiting for the CAG report. “But the Speaker adjourned the house sine die, which saved the government from the criticism of opposition for not tabling the report,” the official said.
CAG has to gauge the progress of developmental projects and their impact on the masses of people. It has to identify the hurdles in the way of implementation of projects, which can be technical, financial, administrative or circumstantial.
In December last year, Governor N N Vohra asked the state government to constitute a high-level committee to ensure “time-bound action” on the findings of the CAG on the functioning of the government departments.
Accountant General (Audit) also raised the issue with the Governor that departments were not acting on the findings of CAG report.
“CAG has already raised various issues pertaining to the functioning of various departments but have not been addressed by the government,” sources said.
Governor had also pressed for placing report in the two houses of legislature. (KNS)