CAG catches MoD diverting troops’ welfare funds

In the normal course, CSD profits are distributed proportionally among users, in this case the armed forces, for welfare schemes for jawans and their families. Often, the funds are also used for rehabilitation of widows of jawans killed in service. Some units also give aid from these funds to retired soldiers fallen on hard times.

The Draft Paragraph says the MoD “did not obtain consent of the Board of Control, Canteen Services, which was the competent body to advise the Government on disposal of such profit of CSD”. The school was meant for children of “officers belonging to a few categories of Civil Services”, and neither the school nor the society “had anything to do with the Armed Forces and hence none of them was eligible for receiving the distributed profit of CSD”, it says.

As part of the CAG Report for the year ending March 31 1998, the Draft Paragraph goes on to declare that the “Ministry’s justification that the Armed Forces would stand to gain as 25 per cent of the seats in the school would be reserved for service personnel lacks rationale as Armed Forces has their own schools in Delhi and did not project any requirement for additional seats.”

Confirming earlier talk about diversion of money from other welfare funds, the Draft Paragraph says, “Even though public money was already involved in the project, no Government sanction existed for the school. Thus, the sanction and payment of Rs 5 crore by the Ministry from the profit of the CSD was irregular.”