BHUBANESWAR: The Comptroller and Auditor General has recommended that internal controls need to be strengthened in the executing agencies to utilise funds within time frame to avoid delay in submission of utilisation certificates (UCs).
In its latest report, CAG has said it should also be ensured that UCs are submitted after actual utilisation of the earmarked funds and funds have not been diverted for other purposes or getting misutilised.
The CAG had found huge pendency in the receipt of UCs relating to grants-in-aid paid to various autonomous bodies, panchayati raj institutions and urban local bodies. It said that this was due to release of grants by the Government as a matter of routine without checking for timely receipt of UCs for earlier grants. Besides, submission of inaccurate UCs without actual utilisation of funds was also found.
It was also found that funds were remaining unspent in many inoperative personal deposit accounts for years together without being credited back to Government accounts at the end of the year. Transfer of budgetary allocation from the consolidated fund to personal deposit account in the public account at the end of the year to avoid lapses adversely affected the transparency of the State’s accounts, it said and added that this inflated the expenditure to that extent and locked up resources which could otherwise have been used.
The CAG found that there were 926 personal deposit account holders in the State with a closing balance (unspent) of ` 575.08 crore by March, 2011. During 2010-11, ` 1,264.18 crore were transfer credited from the consolidated fund of the state to these personal deposit accounts.
On test checks of 80 drawing and disbursing officers operating personal deposit accounts, the CAG found that ` 145.72 crore under these accounts had been irregularly kept rolling for years together. Of these, ` 3.9 crore were lying unutilised/unsurrendered in the personal deposit accounts of seven DDOs for more than three years.