Auditing of Accounts

It is the policy of any democratic country to have the accounts of the schemes and projects undertaken by the regular departments and other government agencies audited regularly to ensure the judicious and fruitful utilization of the funds spent with the approval of the Parliament or the state legislatures as the case may be. Especially where the budgeted and alloted funds are huge and thrust upon the existing apparatus already overburdened or found inefficient in delivery, it is all the more neccessary to have the audit mechanism kept ready and made operational simultaneously so that any deviations or aberrations in the implementation are noticed and corrected from the beginning. But the admission of the Union of India (Govt. of India) before the Supreme Court on Friday, January 28, 2011 that it did not carry out account auditing at any level despite the fact that the Centre released Rs 1.00 lakh crore to states under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme since February 2006.

What a fantastic achievement by the UPA government at the Centre? Performance audit reports have revealed the inherent and acquired deficiencies in the system. Who has the time and wherewithal to check the deviation and pilferage in the working style of the government machinery? The so-called local government structure in the form of Panchayat Raj institutions and their public funtionaries like Sar Panchas (Panchayat Presidents) along with the technical staff are there in the field not to serve the poor and the needy but to enrich their pockets. The public representatives enter the public office from Panchayat level to the top positions mainly to loot the treasury funds to the extent possible in all sorts of ways . No fear whatsoever towards public money!

What mechanism one can think of in such a scenario, God only can tell us. A quick disposal of exemplary trials and punishments for those found guilty alone can control the situaion to a large extent and none else, I suppose.