CAG finds holes in health ministry's fund allocation

A Comptroller-and-Auditor General of India (CAG) report has criticised the health ministry on matters relating to fund allocation, standardisation of drugs and monitoring of various health schemes.

The CAG particularly pulled up the ministry for allocating just 2 per cent of funds to the department of Ayurveda (AYUSH) instead of the 10 per cent stated in the national policy.

"The ministry may introduce a computer-based tracking system for release of funds so that their utilisation improves significantly. It should also insist on obtaining refund of unutilised funds retailed by the state governments for over a year, to avoid financial crunch for other sectors competing for funds," the CAG recommended in its report tabled in the Parliament today.

The CAG criticised the state governments for not transferring 55 per cent of the funds, amounting to Rs 16.94 crore, for up to three years.

None of the 142 colleges out of the 444, which were checked by the CAG, were found having adequate beds in attached hospitals, adequate faculty and out-patient and in-patient facilities according to the norms laid down by the regulatory councils.

The five apex-level institutes, set up as centres of excellence, too, lacked satisfactory infrastructure.

Apart from fund allocation, the CAG criticised the system for drug standardisation as 44 homeopathic drugs were taken for proving and 47 for clinical verification without having been standardised. Out of the 66 projects funded at Rs 7.713 crore, 59 remained incomplete even after seven years.

The CAG noted that only 707 out of 7,849 manufacturing units had obtained the mandatory "Good Manufacturing Practices" certificate from the government as of December 2004.

Further, it said none of the 61 state drug testing laboratories and pharmacies, which were provided with assistance of Rs 50.09 crore under the scheme to strengthen them, was fully functional as on December 2004.

According to the report, the health ministry had not monitored the progress of "Development of Health Care facilities in AYUSH" in 24 states though assistance of Rs 33.74 crore was released in 2002-05.

Also, the progress of 1,077 projects funded at the cost of Rs 62.16 crore during 2001-04 was not monitored through the State Medicinal Plant Boards.