It is beyond comprehension as to why majority of the State departments, State Public Sector Undertakings etc in Jammu and Kashmir State should take casually submission of Utilization Certificates (UCs) which is mandatory both in regular submission as well as in its periodicity. In fact, the very reason of pendency of such Certificates being not only unjustified but the same could lead to jeopardising regular flow in of funds that a particular project or work in progress would earnestly be needing. Not only do such certificates set in motion regular and uninterrupted flow of grants in aid or sanctioned funds to the grantees concerned but at the controlling offices , periodic statutory audits and preparation of data and formulating of reviews and policies get speeded up.
Is there any difficulty in the standard formatting in furnishing the information, we feel that it could not be so, especially in the light of the Finance Department of the State Government issuing several instructions to the Administrative Secretaries and Heads of all the Departments , Chief Executive Officers and Managing Directors of the State Public Sector Undertakings as also Autonomous Bodies etc for not only submission of such certificates regularly periodically but for compliance of all directives in this regard in the usual official vocabulary of ” in letter and spirit”. The basic idea of the centrally sponsored schemes being welfare of the people and ensuring development in various forms in time bound manner and for which the Central Government sanctions funds and in most of the cases on cent percent basis, unless utilization certificates in respect of doses or instalments received were sent to the concerned Ministry in time , how could they release rest of the funds to ensure the particular scheme getting implemented or executed properly ?
There are set rules and requirements governing finance and financial matters which are further subjected to various levels of scrutiny and inspections and audits travelling up to the tables of the office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) and there could be no scope whatsoever of any form to condone or exempt any instance of doing away with the submission of such certificates. The thrust on submission of the UCs and the importance given to it can be gauged by the fact that even the CAG , in almost all of its reports released so far, has laid considerable thrust on timely submission of the UCs. Not only this, there have been instances of expressing displeasure and hence reprimands by the CAG for those who were directly responsible for causing inordinate delays in submission of such unavoidable and mandatory requisite information. It implies that with all the thrust from the concerned quarters , there should have been considerable improvement in the scenario but Jammu and Kashmir State , perhaps is destined to be counted among the defaulting States in totality due to exhibiting mundane approach even in submission of this vital information commensurate with instalments released for centrally sponsored schemes.
The stand of the Central Government must be appreciated in being quite prompt and liberal in devolution of resources to Jammu and Kashmir so that not only fast but timely development of the State took place but if operational work culture to retard efficiency and promptness in submission of critical information about how, where and what so far, was spent along with supporting papers , was not looked into and improved , not only flow of funds would be erratic and uncertain but the projects and schemes undertaken would suffer and ultimately people would thus be denied the benefits of the centrally sponsored schemes. What does it cost in improving efficiency in the concerned officialdom, obviously nothing excepting changing the mindset?
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