No plan created, report generated for FY 2023-24: GoI
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Aug 6: Notwithstanding the Union Government’s strong emphasis on conducting online audit of Panchayat accounts to ensure transparency and effective financial management, the Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh have failed to carry out even a single audit for the financial year 2023-24.
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This was revealed in a written reply by Minister of Panchayati Raj Rajiv Ranjan Singh in the Lok Sabha today. He said that an application of ‘AuditOnline’ has been developed for online audits of Panchayat accounts and their financial management.
Launched in April 2020, AuditOnline is meant for transparent auditing of Central Finance Commission funds utilization to strengthen financial management of Panchayats. For audit year 2023-24, 2.45 lakh Audit Plans have been created and 2.39 lakh Audit Report have been generated by Gram Panchayats across the country.
However, as far as Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir and Union Territory of Ladakh are concerned, no audit for the financial year 2023-24 has been conducted. “There are 4291 Panchayats in J&K but neither any audit plan created nor audit report generated during 2023-24”, the Minister said, adding “similar is the situation in respect of Union Territory of Ladakh where there were 193 Panchayats”.
“AuditOnline is a configurable platform enabling Government entities to facilitate their internal and external audits and to comply with the Comptroller and Audit General of India’s defined standards and guidelines”, the Minister said, adding “it aids effective auditing by ensuring tracking and monitoring of end-to-end auditing process including follow-up of audit observations, audit paras and action taken on audit paras”.
Further, the AuditOnline has significantly simplified scheme-based audit of Panchayats’ accounts at all three levels (District, Block and Village). Since auditing is a critical business requirement hence AuditOnline’s architectural aptness may be utilized to facilitate Urban Local Bodies (ULB) and line department audits with a little alteration.
This glaring non-compliance stands in sharp contrast to the performance of most other States and Union Territories where lakhs of audit plans were created and successfully implemented during the financial year 2023-24.
Interestingly, both the Union Territories have reported achieving 100% computer saturation in their Panchayats, which implies the necessary infrastructure exists to support online audits. Additionally, both regions received significant funding under Rashtriya Gram Swaraj Abhiyan (RGSA).
The main objective of RGSA is to build capacity of Panchayati Raj institutions (PRIs) through imparting training to Elected Representatives (ERs) and other stakeholders of Panchayats to develop their governance capabilities for leadership roles to enable the Panchayats to function effectively.
Apart from training, the scheme also provide support to the States/ UTs to establish institutional mechanism for the Capacity Building & Training and to create Panchayat infrastructure like Gram Panchayat Bhawan, Computer and Co-location of Common Service Centres (CSCs) in Gram Panchayat Bhawan on limited scale.
According to the Minister’s reply, over 300 Gram Panchayats in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir have yet not received buildings. Against a total of 4291 Panchayats, 3964 are having own buildings as on date. In Ladakh, 185 Panchayats are having buildings while as work is apace on remaining eight.
The Minister said that the Gram Panchayat Bhawan functions as the office for Panchayats to carry out its various administrative functions. The States/ UTs have to ensure the Gram Panchayat Bhawan is functional with provisions such as public seating, space for Gram Sabha meetings, information walls, multifunctional rooms etc to support effective governance and community use.
“Under the Centrally Sponsored Scheme of Rashtriya Gram Swaraj Abhiyan, the Ministry supplements the efforts of States/UTs in building Panchayat infrastructure and computers and peripherals, at a limited scale. Further, Ministry with its limited resources under RGSA, attempted saturation approach for supporting Gram Panchayat Bhawans and computerization. With regard to Gram Panchayat Bhawans, the focus was on approving GP Bhawan for Panchayats having a population of over 3,000 but lacking their own building”, he added.
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