JEs get rap on knuckles for financial irregularities

Kuldip Bhatia

Ludhiana, April 29

The audit wing of the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) has rapped the junior engineers and their supervisory officials of various divisions falling under the West Circle of Ludhiana Central zone on the knuckles, for massive financial irregularities.

The auditors have taken exception to failure of the junior engineers to render MAS (material at site) account of material worth some Rs2.16 crore drawn by them for the past several years.

As per the audit report of the Resident Audit Officer (RAO) for 2014-15 and 2015-16, copies of which were obtained under the Right to Information Act by Rohit Sabharwal, president of the Council of RTI Activists, the MAS accounts for material worth Rs94.98 lakh drawn by JEs of Model Town (Spl) Division of the PSPCL during 2008-09 to 2014-15 were not rendered by them. The amount included the value of material worth Rs23.87 lakh drawn by JE Piara Singh during 2008-09 to 2011-12, even though in the meanwhile, the JE had been transferred from Model Town (Spl) Division elsewhere.

Similarly, scrutiny of the MAS records of West Tech sub-division under West Commercial Division revealed that the JEs had failed to render account of MAS worth Rs111.42 lakh, drawn by them during the period 2012-13 to 2015-16.

Taking to task the supervisory officials, auditors observed that no disciplinary action was taken against JEs, who had not submitted their MAS accounts and the erring JEs were allotted fresh works. This indicated that the instructions relating to MAS accounts were not complied with by the Divisional and Sub-divisional offices holding administrative control. In such circumstances, the chances of misappropriation of material cannot be ruled out.

Quoting standing instructions issued by the erstwhile Punjab State Electricity Board (now PSPCL), the audit report says: “JEs are required to close the accounts of material drawn by them and submit the same to the sub-divisional officer (SDO) concerned within one month of completion of work. The SDO will further submit the same to divisional office after carrying out the prescribed checks. In case a JE fails to render MAS accounts, disciplinary action should be taken against him. Further, if the cost of material for which accounts are to be rendered exceeds Rs10,000, a report should be lodged with the police and no further work should be assigned to him.”

It was learnt that citing adverse audit notes, the Deputy Chief Engineer, West Circle, had already written official letters to all Additional Superintending Engineers, heading the division falling in West Circle to provide para-wise reply to all audit objections so that the audit notes could be cleared.