Haryana PAC proposals lost in dust of decades

The PAC consisting of members of the Vidhan Sabha in its annual reports recommends actions and makes observations on the various reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG).

Ironically,paragraph 33 deals with an audit objection of the department of PWD (B&R),a department headed by Cabinet minister Randeep Singh Surjewala who is also the parliamentary affairs minister of the state.

The paragraph refers to a certain amount of payment not having made by the PWD (B&R) department and the non-payment continues to show up as a pending issue in all the subsequent reports of the PAC.

The 65th PAC report tabled in the Vidhan Ssabha last month gives a list of 887 such paragraphs or recommendations on which the government is yet to take any action. These include a paragraph dealing with the industries department which was recommended in the ninth report of the PAC tabled in 1976. Some of the other older paragraphs also deal with the industries department and have not been acted upon since 1978.

Over the years,the PAC paragraphs or recommendations which are pending government action have increased. The 22nd report of the PAC of 1984-85 has seven such objections which are yet to be cleared.

In the 34th PAC report of 20 years ago,committee members have asked the state government to take action against a panchayat officer of Narnaul who reportedly bought useless books out of the district rural development agency (DRDA) funds. The official had bought foreign publications on knitting,sewing,pets,flying,idioms etc from out of the DRDA funds to facilitate rural education in his area. He spent almost Rs 1.44 lakh on buying these books.

Apparently no action has been taken in the matter and the paragraph is still shown as pending in all the subsequent reports of the panel.

Other than this,a host of paragraphs dealing with uncollected revenue in excise and taxation (34th report),misappropriation of stores in PWD (B&R) (36th report),injudicious purchases in public health and embezzlement in cooperation department (40th report),fraud and evasion of taxes in excise and taxation (42nd report),unfruitful expenditure and idle investment in department of town and country planning (44th report),frauds and evasion of taxes in the animal husbandry department (48th report),fraudulent withdrawals and embezzlement in prohibition,excise and taxation (56th report) etc are pending for 7 to 20 years.

Majority of the pending recommendations deal with a handful of departments who seem to be non-serious towards PAC reports. These include the departments of excise and taxation,revenue,irrigation and public health.

“This is one of the reasons that we list all the pending paragraphs in every report so that the departments are reminded of what they still have to do,” said Prof Sampat Singh,who is the chairperson of the 64th PAC.