Auditors’ fear puts J-K paper scare into BSF

After dilly dallying by the Accountant General (audit) of Punjab, BSF Director-General Gurbachan Jagat has asked the Comptroller and Auditor General of India to ensure that the records are audited before these accumulate to unmanageable proportions.

In a letter to CAG V.K. Shanglu, Jagat has asked that ‘‘the audit arrears of such a long periods are cleared at the earliest to avoid problems related to the recovery of government dues’’.

The BSF had always been pursuing this matter, sources said. It appears that on the suggestions of AG (Audit) in Punjab, the zonal office of the CAG under which Jammu and Kashmir falls, had requested for airlifting of the personnel from Jammu to the BSF battalions for auditing. The auditors had been promised adequate security cover by the BSF.

The AG officials backed out and instead put another demand that BSF should airlift all the documents to Jammu where the combined auditing could be undertaken in relatively safer environs.

The BSF chief has apparently rejected the proposal and said it is impossible to airlift the documents from far off battalions. Finally, Jagat has asserted that CAG teams be sent to the state and nothing short of that would work.

Shanglu, sources said, had send a note to the zonal CAG office and asked them to do their job in Jammu and Kashmir.

The CAG has also assured the BSF chief recently that the auditing would be undertaken soon. However, no deadlines have been fixed and the BSF authorities are again skeptical and don’t rule out bureaucratic wrangles on the issue.