CAG raps govt for misutilising contingency reserve

The Maharashtra government has been using its contingency fund to finance regular schemes such as giving scholarships to girl students.

The Comptroller and Auditor General, in its report for the year ended March 2004, has pulled up the state government for drawing money from the fund to finance the "Savitribai Phule Scholarship Scheme" for girl students. The fund is reserved exclusively for emergencies arising due to natural calamities or other such causes.

The CAG has also pointed out that the money withdrawn from the fund was not disbursed to the girl students. So the government erred on two counts, improper use of the fund and non disbursal to the targeted beneficiaries.

According to the report, the government used the fund after it found that provisions made in the Budget for 2003-04 were inadequate to meet the expected outgo towards the scholarships. The scheme had obviously been politicised and its withdrawal would have made for an embarrassing situation.

The CAG report says, "The state government sanctioned an advance of Rs 6.60 crore from the contingency fund for payment of the scholarships during September 2003. The justification for withdrawal being unsatisfactory budget provisions. Further, despite withdrawal of the amount from the contingency fund, scholarships were not disbursed on September 22 in any of the schools."

The report also states that a test check of four districts namely, Jalgaon, Nashik, Raigad, and Thane, revealed that the concerned chief accounts and finance officers of respective zilla parishads withdrew Rs 0.94 crore between July and December 2003 from the treasury for payment of scholarships to 18,479 girl students of 982 schools.

The said amount was paid by demand draft between July 2003 and January 2004. Out of this, 204 schools paid an amount of Rs 0.27 crore to 4,014 beneficiaries from July 2003 to September 2004-after a delay of one to nine months.

The payment of scholarships to the tune of Rs 0.67 crore was not made upto October 2004 by 778 schools. This, the report hints, points to a suspected wrongdoing on part of the school authorities.

The CAG report also questions the details of expenditure of the advances received from the contingency fund. The controlling officers apparently did not send the details and avoided reconciliation with the Accountant General's books. Three sanctions from the fund amounting to Rs 0.39 crore were subsequently reduced to 0.18 crore and three amounting to Rs 11.01 crore were increased to Rs 92.01 crore. Two other sanctions amounting to Rs 0.50 crore were cancelled. This, the sources said was not a normal practice as it was expected that once a sanction was made the quantum remained unaltered.

The sore points

Maharashtra govt sanctions Rs 6.6 crore from the contingency fund for scholarship

The fund is reserved exclusively for emergencies arising due to natural calamities or other such causes.

Money withdrawn from the fund was not disbursed to the girl students.

An amount of Rs 0.27 crore was paid to 4,014 beneficiaries after a delay of one to nine months.

CAG suspects wrongdoing on part of the school authorities.