State Chief Secretary M S Rao and top officials of Planning and Finance departments will depose before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the State Assembly to explain the reasons for surrendering Rs 5242.30 crore to the Centre.
Sources said that the Chief Secretary and top officials of Planning and Finance departments have been asked to appear before the PAC on October 12 to explain the reasons for non-utilisation of the funds.
The State Finances Audit Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General which was tabled in the Assembly on September 17 stated that the State government surrendered Rs 5242.30 crore out of Rs 6003.39 crore total savings of various offices and departments last year depriving utilisation of this amount for other developmental purposes.
As per the report, out of the total savings of Rs 6003.39 crore, an amount of Rs 5242.30 crore was surrendered on the last working day of March 2020.
“Surrender of funds on the last working day denied utilisation of savings for other developmental purposes,” the CAG report said.
The CAG has also recommended that budgetary exercise requires urgent streamlining by the Finance Department due to huge unutilised funds over the years.
“The government should consider overhauling of estimates, which largely remained ambitious and also augment the capacity of the spending departments to utilise earmarked funds on time,” the CAG said.
Further, the CAG said that “surrender of funds should be so timed that they can be gainfully utilised by other needy departments where projects continue to languish due to insufficient funds”.
Meanwhile, sources also said that the PAC will also find out the non-submission of 838 utilisation certificates amounting to Rs 3843.47 crore which were due for submission during 2019-2020.
Leader of opposition Dr. Mukul Sangma on September 23 has lashed out at the State government’s surrender of the total savings last year and said it speaks volumes about the overall focus and priority of the Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) government.
“If you cannot absorb the money which has been released to you then what happens you deprive the State of that fund. If you delay by three years that means you have deprived further funds coming because the same amount which should have come the subsequent year will not come,” Dr. Sangma had said.
He had also alleged that there are serious irregularities in the utilisation of funds.
“The fact that they have not been able to submit the Utilisation Certificates (UCs) against those funds which they have received from different line ministries indicates that they have not utilised the funds for the purpose and that is why they could not submit the UCs,” Dr. Sangma said.
