CAG Report On Bengal Comes As Endorsement Of Charges Of Widespread Corruption By Trinamool Government

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s oft-repeated charge of massive financial misappropriation, especially involving federally-sponsored welfare schemes and projects, in Bengal has found endorsement in the latest report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG). 

The CAG report for the 2021-2022 financial year reveals that as on March 2021, utilisation certificates (UCs) totalling to Rs 2.29 lakh crore of grants received from the Union Government had not been submitted in the state. 

UCs are documents submitted by beneficiaries of grants, or welfare schemes and projects, endorsing the receipt and proper utilisation of funds. 

As per the state government's own rules, UCs have to be collected from grantees within a year of disbursal of the grants by officers of the department through which the funds had been disbursed. 

But, said the CAG report, 394,162 UCs for grants amounting to a whopping Rs 229,099 crore had not been submitted. 

It is assumed that UCs are not submitted if the funds have not been utilised properly and have been misappropriated. 

Another major financial anomaly flagged by the CAG is non-submission of detailed contingent (DC) bills even years after withdrawing funds from the state exchequer through abstract contingent (AC) bills. 

Money is drawn from the state exchequer through AC bills in case of contingencies like floods, erosion, droughts and other natural disasters, or to provide relief and meet other contingency expenses for events and happenings that are unforeseen. 

The state’s rules stipulate that DC bills with clearer and verifiable details of the funds withdrawn through AC bills have to be submitted within a maximum period of 60 days of withdrawal of funds. 

The CAG report reveals that as of March 2021, 11,321 DC bills for a total amount of Rs 3,400 crore had not been submitted. 

The CAG report lamented that despite successive CAG audit reports flagging the issue of non-submission of UCs, the Bengal government has remained unconcerned. 

Since the Trinamool Congress came to power in 2011, non-submission of UCs has become a chronic problem. 

From 2011-2012 to 2020-2021, a total of 243,855 UCs for grants amounting to Rs 2.29 lakh crore had not been submitted. 

In fact, the pendency of UCs has only been increasing.

This financial impropriety assumed chronic proportions in the period from 2018 to 2021 when the number of UCs not submitted accounted for nearly 50 per cent of the total number of pending UCs. 

Significantly, this is also the period when the maximum number of financial scams were unearthed. And this lends credence to the BJP’s charge that huge sums of money received from the Union Government for centrally-funded schemes and projects were misappropriated by Trinamool functionaries and state officials. 

To further buttress the BJP’s charge about financial anomalies and scams, the CAG report revealed that the Panchayat and Rural Development (P&RD) Department had the maximum pendency of UCs (81,950 UCs amounting to Rs 81,839 crore), followed by the School Education Department (38,117 UCs for Rs 36,850 crore), and Urban Development and Municipal Affairs department (34,837 UCs for Rs 30,693 crore). 

This, again, corresponds to the BJP’s charge that huge sums of federal funds meant for MGNREGA and other rural projects which the P&RD Department implements and mid-day meals and other welfare schemes administered by the School Education Department are embroiled in largescale corruption.

“We have been saying all along that hundreds of crores of Rupees given by the Union Government for schemes like MGNREGA, housing for poor, construction of roads, mid-day meals, school uniforms for poor students etc have been looted by ministers, Trinamool functionaries and government officials. The CAG report endorses our allegations,” said leader of opposition and senior BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari. 

The CAG report notes: “In the absence of UCs, it could not be ascertained whether the recipients had utilised the grants for the purposes for which these were given. This assumes greater importance as pendency in non-submission of UCs is fraught with the risk of misappropriation”. 

On pendency of DC bills, the report notes: “Pending DC bills reflects on accounting indiscipline by government functionaries and controlling authorities leading to risk of fraud, temporary misappropriation and embezzlement of funds”. 

State BJP president Sukanta Majumdar flagged this in a series of posts on X. “What the CAG report has revealed is just the tip of the iceberg. We want the CBI and ED to initiate more enquiries into misappropriation of central funds and other financial misdeeds by the Mamata Banerjee government,” Majumdar told Swarajya. 

The non-submission of UCs and DC bills, and various other financial anomalies, has led to the Union Government withholding disbursal of more funds to Bengal. Audits carried out independently by various Union ministries have also revealed largescale anomalies. 

The Bengal government had, earlier, been forced to accept that misappropriation and misutilisation of funds for many welfare schemes and infrastructure projects had taken place. 

However, the state government has doggedly refused to punish the guilty because that would amount to prosecuting a huge number of Trinamool leaders and functionaries, as well as its favoured officials. 

The Union Government has, thus, withheld funds for such schemes and projects, leading to Mamata Banerjee crying foul and threatening to launch yet another agitation in protest. 

This is likely to become a hot-button issue in the Lok Sabha elections a couple of months from now. The BJP is planning to use the CAG report as an effective stick to beat the Trinamool with.