Audit report for action against PU officials

Bhartesh Singh Thakur

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 21

The UT Audit Department, in its audit report of Panjab University (PU) for 2016-17, has called for action against PU officials for submitting inflated bills and has suggested manpower audit there.  

The Tribune procured the audit report under the Right to Information Act (RTI). 

The report claimed that the Local Audit Department saved Rs 65 lakh for the PU. “These payments would have been made out, but on account of audit had been avoided. This has resulted in saving funds. The responsibility of officials be fixed and action be taken against them,” said the report.  

In a bill of Accounts/ Assistant Registrar (Establishment), regarding service tax claimed in the financial sanction of outsourcing of staff, submitted on March 31, 2017, Rs 34.5 lakh was saved. The PU is exempted from service tax.

 In the outsourcing of security staff, four bills on February 7 and February 8, 2017, worth Rs 47.14 lakh were submitted but only Rs 40.99 lakh was approved, saving Rs 6.14 lakh.  A bill of the establishment/accounts branch of March 2, 2017, concerning an outsourcing agency, was inflated by Rs 1.16 lakh.

A bill of the statistics department, regarding desktop computers worth Rs 10.24 lakh, was submitted but it was approved for Rs 9.76 lakh, saving Rs 50,400 .

During the audit test, it was noticed that there are “approximately 787 employees-B Class-262; C Class- 396 and 129 Security Guards”- being paid salary out of the budget head, “Outsourcing/Contractual Appointment”. “The workload of each department has not been assessed by the university,” said the audit report.  

“No compliance in this regard has been done so far despite pointing out in the previous audit note for the period 2009-10 to 2015-16. The number of persons for appointment to Classes A, B and C employees be assessed keeping in view the workload and vacant posts of different departments and same be approved from the Board of Finance/Syndicate/Senate category-wise,” added the audit report.   

The audit report says that the PU should tell the High Court that the UGC had clarified that those assistant professors who were enrolled for PhD before 2009 couldn’t get non-compounded increments. Over 100 assistant professors are not getting increments. Notably, they had approached the High Court against the university. Those who did PhDs before joining the service are seeking five increments  and those who did doctorate while in service are seeking three increments. 

PU paid fellowships from its pocket

• Payments to junior research fellows, amounting to Rs 4.84 crore, were released from the Audit Department for 2016-17 under objection for want of receipt of grant from the UGC, as per orders of the Vice-Chancellor.
• “As per the rule, the incurring of expenditure in anticipation of receipt of grant ordinarily is not permissible,” said the audit report.
• “The necessary steps may please be taken to get Rs 4.84 crore released for 2016-17 from the UGC, along with the grant for 2017-18, at the earliest,” added the report.   

219 cases worth Rs 22 crore not cleared

• The PU made the Audit Department allow payments in 254 cases during 2016-17 for want of compliance of the audit observations later on to avoid penalty, surcharge, contempt proceedings. Out of these, only 35 cases have been settled but 219 cases, amounting to Rs 22.02 crore, are still pending.

Temporary advances not adjusted

A list of 825 temporary advances, involving an amount of Rs 15.99 crore, is yet to be adjusted. The audit report says that under rule 7.8 of the Accounts Manual, the advances are to be granted for meeting petty and emergent expenditure, debitable to contingent grant and “these are to be adjusted by March 31”.