Cong government underutilized student welfare funds during its tenure according to CAG audit report
A Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report tabled in the state assembly on Tuesday has pointed out several anomalies in the award of post-matric scholarships to students belonging to the SC and OBC category in the state. The audit report found instances of “inadmissible payments and excess payments totaling Rs 3.18 crore as well as Rs 5.21 crore parked in bank accounts instead of disbursing to eligible beneficiaries or being refunded to the treasury.”
“It was observed that 53,385 students remained deprived of the due scholarship,” the report says giving the breakup of the students as 17,376 in Haridwar, 15,837 in Dehradun and 20,172 in Udham Singh Nagar district. The audit of the centrally sponsored scholarship scheme – which provides for reimbursement of tuition fees and other non-refundable compulsory fees charged to students belonging to these categories – was done by the auditing agency for the period 2013-14 to 2015-16 from April to June last year which revealed these anomalies.
In addition, the CAG found that the women empowerment and child development department of the state “released only Rs .20 crore to selected districts for implementation of the Beti Bachao Beti Padao scheme out of the received central assistance of Rs .77 crore of which only Rs 8.90 lakh (12%) was utilised which defeated the entire objective of checking the decline in child sex ratio in the state.”
CAG also found “major weaknesses in the implementation of the Right to Education (RTE) Act in Uttarakhand especially in the identification of beneficiary children as well as delay in release of funds and reimbursement to schools that impaired their ability to continue education of children admitted under the Act.” “Rs .19 crore was remitted to ineligible educational institutions and there were instances of excess reimbursement to schools instead of the money going directly into the bank accounts of the beneficiary children. In addition, Rs 7.07 crore was lying unutilized for two years,” the report noted. The report said that the IT system in Uttarakhand had no provision for bar coding in the online software to filter fake applications and this made it susceptible to multiple applications and also double payments to individuals.
The audit also found that due dilligence was not exercised while giving the go-ahead for establishment of several private universities in the state, including the Patanjali University in Haridwar in whose case “the notification for establishment of the university was accorded before the establishment of the endowment fund.”
