Varsities defaulting on accounts earn panel ire

The Rajya Sabha Committee on Papers Laid on the Table on Monday pulled up the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry for delays by higher education institutes across the board in submitting their audited accounts and annual reports. At the meeting held on Monday, the committee expressed displeasure over a number of universities and technical institutes not submitting their accounts on time and Delhi University and Assam University among others were particularly mentioned for the delay.

“Several universities and professional institutes were defaulters as far as timely submission of accounts are concerned. After eight months of the financial year, each government body must have its accounts in place but this was not the case at all. Delhi University, Assam University and a number of institutes have defaulted on this count. Not only in terms of accounts, some have not even come out with their annual report till now including the prestigious Delhi University,” a committee member told The Indian Express.

Delhi University, incidentally, has been a regular defaulter on this front. While things are said to have picked up and account auditing has improved under the current VC’s tenure, sources say it has to be improved further.

The committee also expressed displeasure over the lack of computerisation of accounts in several colleges.

“Just about 16-17 institutes out of a total of 90 under the HRD ministry have computerised accounts. This is disgraceful as at least educational institutes are expected to give a lead to all others in such matters. We have also recommended to the ministry that they ask a joint secretary-level official to monitor the account auditing by all institutes to ensure timeliness.”