Fed up with continuous delay in submission of utilisation certificates by various government bodies, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), in its report released on Monday, asked the Himachal Pradesh government to review the funding of such bodies in the state.

The CAG report, which was tabled by Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur in the HP Assembly, states that out of 5,758 utilisation certificates with grant of Rs 5,128 crore, 2,407 certificates (42 per cent) aggregating Rs 1,898 crore (37 per cent) were pending till March 2019.

Advertisement

“This high pendency of utilisation certificates is fraught with the risk of misappropriation of funds and fraud. The state government should ensure timely submission of utilisation certificates of these institutions (grantees) and review whether grants should be continued to such government bodies,” the report stated.

The CAG report pointed out that out of the 14 autonomous bodies, only three had submitted utilisation certificates for 2018-19 and the remaining bodies had not submitted it despite delay of one year as of September 2019.

The state government had also reported 44 cases of misappropriation/ loss, theft of government money to the tune of Rs 93.79 lakh till March 2019 and action in these cases was still awaited.

In addition, 41 cases out of the total 44 involved more than 5 years, the report added.

The CAG also pulled up the state government for not amending the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act as recommended by the 14th Finance Commission.

The CAG pointed out that the increase in fiscal liabilities of the state government by 6.41 per cent to Rs 54,299 crore in 2018-19 as compared to previous year and these liabilities were 36 per cent of the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP). The total public debt had witnessed an annual average growth of 9.60 per cent and it increased from Rs 25,729 crore in 2014-15 to Rs 36,425 crore in 2018-19.

The CAG report showed that Himachal’s revenue receipts increased by 13 per cent to Rs 30,950 crore as compared to Rs 27,367 crore in the previous year.

Only 33 per cent of receipts came from the state’s own resources comprising taxes and non-taxes while the remaining 67 per cent was contributed by the Union government. These include the state’s share in central taxes (18 per cent) and grant-in-aid from the Central government (49 per cent), the report added.