In a report tabled on the last day of the Punjab Assembly session, the government auditor said the 13th Finance Commission (TFC) in its report submitted on December 29, 2009, recommended release of Rs 5,510.27 crore under 22 grants including border areas, development of Kandi areas, heritage, police training, disaster relief for various schemes in Punjab.
To assess the optimisation of the grants received by Punjab government during 2010-15, an audit was conducted by test checking the records of the Finance Department and the administrative departments concerned in respect of eight grants, out of 22 grants under TFC.
As regards with selected eight grants, against the allocation of Rs 3,466.80 crore recommended by TFC, the Punjab government availed only Rs 2,747.30 crore during 2010-15 and 21 per cent (Rs 719.50 crore) could not be availed due to delayed utilisation of funds and submission of utilisation certificates to the Centre and non-fulfillment of prescribed conditions for availing subsequent grants under TFC, it said.
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The amount was released for executing various works in piecemeal between December 2012 and September 2014 after a delay of more than a year which delayed the funds utilisation.
Further, out of third installment of Rs 50 crore received from Centre in February 2015, only Rs 35 crore was released to PPHC leaving Rs 15 crore unreleased, which adversely affected the works of upgrading training facilities for police personnel, report noted.
In order to get fourth installment from the Centre, the state government submitted inflated utilisation certificate of Rs 135 crore whereas only Rs 50.24 crore were actually utilised as of July 2015.