GUWAHATI, June 27 � Though the Assam government has been claiming that it is submitting utilisation certificates of funds received from the Centre, a report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) presented a totally different picture as, according to the CAG, a number of government departments failed to submit utilisation certificates for over three years.
The report revealed that between 2001-02 and 2013-14, different departments of the Assam government failed to submit as many as 19,671 utilisation certificates in respect of grants amounting to Rs 11, 845.24 crore paid to 58 departments. Interestingly, of those, 16,990 utilisation certificates of Rs 5,565.22 crore were pending for more than three years.
The CAG report gave details of the departments, which failed to provide utilisation certificates for more than three years. The report revealed that agriculture department failed to submit utilisation certificates of over Rs 450 crore for more than three years, while the cultural affairs department failed to do the same for money amounting to Rs 137 crore. Similarly, departments like education, finance, fisheries, health, industries and commerce, panchayat and rural development, secretariat administration, sports and youth welfare, welfare of scheduled tribes and backward classes also failed to submit utilisation certificates for more than three years.
The report said that in the absence of the utilisation certificates, it was not possible to ascertain whether or not the recipients managed to utilise the grants properly. The report revealed that no effort was made by the State government to ensure submission of the utilisation certificates within the prescribed timeframe although the matter was pointed out by the CAG in its reports on several occasions in the past.
