ROURKELA: Even as a special audit by a team of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) on the alleged financial and administrative irregularities in National Institute of Technology-Rourkela (NIT-R) looks imminent, the abrupt transfer of the institute’s Internal Audit Officer had raised eyebrows.Sources said the special team of CAG is likely to arrive in a week and the institute’s officials can be seen working hard to put the papers in order. The CAG’s decision for conducting a special probe was triggered by news reports and several complaints received by it.
The mandate of the special CAG audit is not yet clear. Yet, the institute’s sources claim that the audit may cover alleged irregularities in selection of faculty where the results showed no correlation between academic achievement and Modified Recruitment Rules. Besides, it is alleged that increments were given to select members of the faculty who are deemed close to the higher-ups and unjustified promotions and financial rewards were given to three non-teaching staff. The other irregularities include diversion of funds from the World Bank funded TEQIP project to non-admissible expenditures.
Sources said Assistant Registrar and Internal Audit (IA) Officer Swagatika Sahoo recently raised objection to dealing of the transport contractor and demanded supporting documents. It is claimed that the NIT-R administration got an inkling of the upcoming CAG audit and on July 17, abruptly shifted the incumbent Sahoo from Internal Audit (IA) to inconsequential position in the Students’ Welfare (SW) section.
She was replaced by Assistant Registrar UK Biswal of Sponsored Research (SR), while Assistant Registrar MN Anand Babu of SW was posted to SR. Significantly, in the absence of the Registrar, the transfer order was issued hastily by an Acting Registrar with the remark that it was issued ‘with approval of competent authority’.
Contacted, Registrar SK Upadhyay said a routine audit of the CAG is going on in the institute and they have no information about any upcoming special audit by CAG team. He termed the IA officer’s transfer as an internal administrative issue and described it as a routine transfer.Meanwhile, NIT-R Director Prof Animesh Biswas said, “We are trying our best to ensure that our audit is transparent”.