The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has pulled up 186 local self-government institutions of Ernakulam and Kottayam districts that lifted 4013.499 MT of foodgrain of which Rs 7.38-crore worth of foodgrain remain unused for the past four years that was meant to be used for poverty alleviation.
The CAG report on local self-government institutions for the year ended March 2012, which was released on Thursday, said that rice and wheat collected from FCI godown as way back as in 2007-08 under Sampoorna Gramin Rozgar Yojana Scheme was remaining unused making it unfit for human consumption. “During 2007-08, Poverty Alleviation Units (PAU) of Ernakulam and Kottayam District Panchayats issued indents to 186 LSGIs to lift 4013.499 MT of foodgrain from FCI godowns under SGRY scheme. Test check on June 2011 and July 2012 of the records of PAUs revealed that foodgrain were not distributed to rural workers as envisaged in the scheme but were stored in the godowns,’’ CAG report said. The report further said that the secretaries of the District Panchayats of Ernakulam and Kottayam stated that the foodgrain were lifted and kept in the godowns as per the government order of March 2008. “The government order, however, did not give clear instructions to the LSGIs till July 2012, on how to utilise the foodgrains after the scheme was discontinued. As a result, foodgrain worth Rs 7.38 crore remained unutilised in various godowns without any benefit to the targeted beneficiary of the scheme,’’ report said. ‘’The food inspector of Kanjirappally Circle certified in April 2012 that the rice and wheat stored in Koruthode grama panchayat in Kottayam district is unfit for human consumption. The government issued orders to all LSGIs in July 2012 to the effect that foodgrains unfit for human consumption be auctioned off for purposes other than human consumption or removed from the godown,’’ the CAG pointed out.
The report also criticised Thiruvananthapuram Corporation for lapses in the assessment and collection of property tax. The local body lacks an integrated database of public and private properties and is backward in the maintenance of records which has severely affected its ability to realise the tax, says the CAG report. “Complete and accurate data on all assessable public and private properties such as residential and non-residential properties, government properties, properties of autonomous bodies etc is a pre-requisite for raising proper demand. This has the added benefit of detecting unauthorised structures. Audit noticed that the corporation had no comprehensive database of all assessable properties,’’ the report noted.