Pb govt to go for 3rd party audit of all municipal work

The Punjab government has decided to conduct a third party technical and financial audit of all municipal work valued over 10 crore that has been carried out over the last three years.
The move, being undertaken to identify lapses and accordingly take appropriate action, was decided at a meeting of the Local Government department, chaired by Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, here today.
The meeting was attended by Local Bodies Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu, besides senior officials, said an official spokesman.
The government will get the proposed audit done by well-known external firms. It is to be completed within 30 days of award of the audit work.

The request for proposal will be issued in the first week of May, the spokesperson said after the meeting.
It was also decided at the meeting to undertake a concurrent third party audit of all major municipal works in the future, along with a social audit.

The government has also decided to go for e-governance, in a phased manner, across all the key services of the department in order to enhance efficiency, accountability and speed.
At the meeting, Sidhu said e-governance would eliminate corruption to a great extent by reducing human interface, especially in matters of clearances and licences.
It was also decided in the meeting to launch a series of reform measures to streamline and expedite progress on all urban development mission programmes in the state.

In another significant measure to bring in transparency, it was decided to migrate completely to the double entry system of accounting, for which a new municipal account will be prepared and notified.
Earlier, in a presentation to the Chief Minister on 'Agenda for Good Governance', the department officials pointed out that the municipal corporations were not maintaining account books, as a result of which they had no accountability with respect to revenue and expenditure.
The meeting also discussed the Rs 495.54 crore BRTS project in Amritsar, scheduled to be fully operational by August 2017, with Sidhu suggesting a review of the same.

The minister suggested lowering of bus fares to make them competitive with other modes of available transport to make BRTS viable.
The issue of stray dogs menace also came up for discussion. The chief minister directed health officials to ensure availability of anti-rabies vaccine in sufficient quantity to provide timely relief to the victims of stray dog bites.