Jharkhand officials fail accountability test: CAG

Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) in a recent report said that senior officials in Jharkhand failed to enforce accountability and protect interests of the government while facing inspection reports.

CAG's inspection reports till December 2007 disclosed that 18,957 paragraphs involving Rs 5,812.93 crore relating to 3,645 inspection reports remained outstanding till June 2008 with the state government offices in Jharkhand.

Even the first replies, required to be received within one month of the receipt of the inspection reports, were not received in respect of 661 inspection reports issued between 1984-85 and 2005-06, the report said. CAG had brought the matter to the notice of the Jharkhand Chief Secretary in August 2008 but no reply has been received.

The CAG report pointed out that unsatisfactory compliance by the departments in settlement of audit observations resulted in increasing trend of outstanding audit observations and inspection reports.The report said that large pendency of inspection reports due to non-receipt of replies indicated that heads of offices and heads of departments did not initiate action to rectify defects, omission and irregularities pointed out in the inspection reports.

CAG has recommended that the government should take suitable steps to ensure that effective procedure existed for prompt and appropriate response to audit observations, action against officials/officers failing to send replies to inspection reports/paras as per prescribed time schedule and action to recover loss/outstanding demands in a time-bound manner.