Panchayats to be audited online

Ravinder Sood

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Palampur, August 11

The alleged misuse of funds by various panchayats has become a matter of concern, not just for the administration, but also for the general public.

A number of cases pertaining to panchayats misappropriating funds allocated for developmental projects have come to light. In some such incidents, the state government had ordered the registration of police cases.

Recently, the state government removed the pradhan of the Dheera panchayat following irregularities detected in the construction of rain shelters in the area.

A senior officer of the state government, while talking to The Tribune, said the state government was well versed with the situation, and was employing new technology to check the misappropriation of funds by the panchayats.

“The Government of India has decided to digitally audit 2.5 lakh panchayats across the country. In the first phase, accounts of 20 per cent of the panchayats were audited. The Panchayati Raj Department used ‘Audit Online’, an open-source application that facilitates online and offline audit of accounts, for it,” he added.

By the end of this financial year, 100 per cent of panchayats across India would have been audited, he said.

“Online audit would ease access to records, which can be monitored at the district, state and the Central level. Uploading photos of the work done, and geo-tagging projects would allow for physical inspection,” he added.

Audit Online is an open-source application developed as part of Panchayat Enterprise Suite (PES) under the e-panchayat Mission Mode Project (MMP) initiated by the Ministry of Panchayati Raj (MoPR).