Audit hurry before polls : To check the account books and send out a stern message against corruption ahead of next year’s rural polls.

Sources said state govt's decision to speed up audit was significant as there had been nominal internal audit since 2018, when Trinamul took control of panchayats

Arkamoy Datta Majumdar   |  TT  |  Calcutta   |   16.05.22  : The state panchayat and rural development department has conducted an internal audit of around 3,500 gram panchayats to check the account books and send out a stern message against corruption ahead of next year’s rural polls.

Sources in the panchayat department said the state government’s decision to speed up audit was significant as there had been nominal internal audit since 2018, when Trinamul took control of panchayats in Bengal following rural polls marked by controversy.

“The department is supposed to internally audit the accounts of panchayats every quarter, which has not been done properly since 2018,” an official said. “When we wanted to finish the audit for 2020-21 in February, we saw only 43 per cent of panchayats had been audited. We multiplied manpower and in two months 92 per cent of panchayats have been audited,” the official added.

Sources claimed that the decision to enforce a vigorous scan of accounts of the panchayats was taken in February. In March and February, almost 50 per cent of panchayats were audited, taking the number to 92 per cent.

The government also recently decided to review every project by 16 hill development boards since their inception, the decision aimed at getting to the truth in allegations of financial impropriety ahead of GTA polls next month.

At least 5,000 complaints of misappropriation of funds were lodged against rural bodies over the past few years. The allegations were mostly against Trinamul members at the helm of the panchayats.

However, the question currently faced by the administration is whether it would be able to probe all complaints and initiate action against the accused before the rural polls.

Many officials appeared unsure whether the hastily completed task will yield any actual result on the basis of which action can be taken.

“In two months we did a job that was supposed to be done every quarter every year. We are yet to achieve our 100 per cent target. I doubt this exercise will actually prove useful,” an official said. This official went on to add that several anomalies in raw material procurement and project execution were spotted.

Though sources said political pressure was the primary reason, lack of manpower was also a reason for skipping internal audits in the past few years. To finish the job, 92 persons from the clerical cadre of the department were promoted as panchayat development officers.

CPM state secretary Md Salim called the audit an “eyewash”. “What were they doing since 2018?” BJP’s chief spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya asked if an exercise supposed to be done every three months over years could be completed in 60 days.

“This is absolute nonsense. How can we trust an exercise done in such haste?” he said.

Pulak Roy, the panchayat minister of the state, admitted that the exercise to audit gram panchayats and the samitis had been taken up but refused to elaborate.

The department will start auditing the 378-odd panchayat samitis in the coming months.

This work is done by the Samity Audit and Accounts Officers at the samity levels. Every sub-division in the state is supposed to have one such officer. However, the post is vacant in more than 50% of the sub-divisions in the state.