CAG pulls up State Govt for irregularities in foreign tours

CALCUTTA, JULY 7: The Comptroller and Auditor General has taken serious exception to foreign tours undertaken by several West Bengal mini...

CALCUTTA, JULY 7: The Comptroller and Auditor General has taken serious exception to foreign tours undertaken by several West Bengal ministers, members of the Legislative Assembly and bureaucrats in violation of rules.

The CAG, in report no 3 (civil) 1998, pointed out at least five cases of foreign tours undertaken by State ministers and bureaucrats between 1996 and 1997 without the Union Government’s approval.

The section of the CAG report dealing with Foreign travels by Ministers, MLAs, officials,’ said the tours, costing Rs 1.88 lakh by three ministers — Bhakti Bhushan Mondal, Subhas Chakraborty, Birendra Kumar Maitra and two bureaucrats Barin Basu and Arun Bhattacharjee — were conducted without the approval of the Ministry of Finance, Department of Economic Affairs, Government of India. The report observed, “It was clear how the Foreign Exchange was paid in the absence of clearance of foreign tour by the Government of India.”

When this was pointed out by the audit, the West Bengal Government obtained ex-post facto approval’ for Minister for Agriculture Marketing Birendra Kumar Maitra’s tour. While according approval, the “Government of India advised the State Government to adhere to the existing guidelines on the subject in future.”

However, the report concluded that the, “Travel allowance drawn by these ministers and officials in the absence of Government of India approval was unauthorised.”

The report points out that in case of State Fisheries Minister Kiranmoy Nanda, who, “visited Australia via Singapore and Bangkok from July 20, 1996 to August 7, 1996,” his personal incidentals were “met from the State Exchequer though required to be borne by him.”

The report pointed to a case of withdrawal of excess daily allowance by principal secretary L R K Prasad, who visited the United States for seven days in December 1996.

Story continues below this ad

The State Government also took a panning over the “non-submission of tour reports” by ministers, officials and MLAs. The report pointed out that during 1996-98, “25 ministers, 21 Government officials, the Speaker, the Deputy Speaker, leader of the Opposition of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly (WBLA), one MLA and the Secretary of the WBLA visited 42 foreign countries on 55 occasions, expending Rs 50.49 lakh… But there is nothing on record to indicate whether tour reports were sent to the Government of India in any of these cases as of June 1998.”

According to rules, the leader of an official delegation going abroad on official work is required to send a report to the Government of India, Ministry of Finance, within three weeks of completion of the visit.