Notice to 26 for non-payment of dues

The officials of the Principal Accountant General's (PAG) office in Bhubaneswar have served notices on 26 persons including senior bureaucrats and elected representatives for non-payment of their advance amount which was availed from the District Rural Development Agency (DRDA)-Jagatsinghpur.

P K Mohapatra, Revenue Divisional Commissioner (central range) and the Jagatsinghpur district collector Narayan Jena who had availed advance money from the DRDA 15 years back, are yet to return the amount.

Sources said that officials of PAG led by chief auditor B M Swain and others conducted a review of different programmes and also audited the finance and account matters of 2007-08 and 2009-10 of DRDA, Jagatsinghpur. During audit, it was found that nearly 26 officials including the elected representatives had availed Rs 4.63 lakh towards advance for their different expenditure but they have not returned this amount to DRDA, thereby causing large number of irregularities in expenditure of money.

It was found during the process of investigation that Mohapatra, who was the chief executive officer of Jagatsinghpur DRDA in 1994-95, had availed Rs 19,590 towards advance while Jena, who was the then project director of DRDA, had availed Rs 1701 towards advance for different expenditure.

Similarly, Zilla Parishad (ZP) president Natabar Barik had availed Rs 10,000 while former ZP president Sabita Mohapatra had taken Rs 5000 as advance money from the DRDA.

Barik has confessed that he had availed Rs 10,000 towards advance money from DRDA to attend the conference of National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in New Delhi on October 2, 2008.

He said, he has submitted vouchers and tickets towards traveling expenditure.

Meanwhile, many officials have been transferred and retired while the elected representatives have completed their tenure, but the total advance amount of Rs 4.63 lakh has been pending for the past 10-15 years and no steps have been taken to collect this amount from them.

On the other hand, one assistant project director informed that few officials had cleared their amount after the issue of the notification but many including the present RDC (central range) and the current Jagatsinghpur district collector are yet to clear their dues.

When conntacted, project director, DRDA-Jagatsinghpur, Ramchandra Patra confessed that notice has been issued against the officials who have neglected to pay back their advance amount.