Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has severely criticised the Union Finance Ministry of not looking into the recurring instances of excess expenditure by government departments, particularly by the Finance, Defence and Railways Ministries.
In its report on excesses over voted grants and charged appopriations for 2012-13 placed in both houses of Parliament on Monday, the PAC chaired by former Union Minister Mallikarjun Kharge noted that the Finance Ministry had not been “sincere” about finding solutions to the recurring unjustified expenditure.
“The Committee are shocked to note that the Ministry of Finance (Department of Economic Affairs) have not undertaken thorough scrutiny of recurring instances of excess expenditure over the last five years with a view to check the unabated trend of excess expenditure,” the PAC said in its report on the action taken by the government.