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Buta Singh wants more powers for PAC

By T.S. Ranganna

Bangalore Jan. 2. Buta Singh, Chairman of the Lok Sabha Public Accounts Committee (PAC), said that there was an urgent need to amend the Comptroller and Auditor-General of India Act to make officials more accountable while spending Government money on various projects at the Centre and in States.

He told The Hindu here on Wednesday that because of the lacunae in the accounting system, it had become difficult to punish the officials for their omissions and commissions. Senior officers in the Central Excise and Income Tax departments, who failed in collecting the revenues, could not be booked, as they had retired.

He admitted that it was a mistake not to mention the names of erring officers in the annual reports of the CAG. After some time, nobody would remember what happened to the charges made against the officials, who would go scot-free. The Cabinet Secretary in the case of the Centre and the Chief Secretary in the States should record the irregularities committed by the officers in the annual confidential reports, as a deterrent. Mr. Singh said he would write to the Lok Sabha Speaker, Manohar Joshi, to take up the issue with the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee. In the absence of a tough monitoring mechanism, thousands of crores would go waste.

Mr. Singh, a senior Congress leader and former Union Minister, said the amendment would facilitate the PAC to go into the accountability of the officer concerned in his acts of irregularity or inefficiency. Expressing his anguish over the refusal of the Defence Minister, George Fernandes, to appear before the PAC in the defence deals last year, he said that even stalwarts such as the late C. Subramaniam and Swaran Singh had appeared before the PAC and explained their position.

Accusing the bureaucrats of adopting delaying tactics, the PAC Chairman said even the Chief Vigilance Commissioner had no objection to show a copy of the report on defence deals in the Speaker's chamber, but this was scuttled. The PAC, he said, was yet to get the details of the ammunition for Bofors guns, general armaments, photogenic equipment, coffin affairs, shoes, and uniforms to the three armed forces.

Expressing his helplessness over the non-receipt of action taken reports from the Union Ministries of health, and railways, on safety and security, he said without them Parliament could not take up any discussion. He criticised the States for the delay in filing their replies to the inspection reports submitted by the CAG. All this had come in the way of the PAC discharging its constitutional functions.

Emphasising the need for a reform in the accounting system on a par with the U.S., U.K., and Canada, he said he would request the Speaker to review it. Meanwhile, he said, the World Bank had agreed to his proposal to hold its first-ever international accounting conference in India. The World Bank had mooted an idea to ensure better accounting standards and monitoring of the budget spending. Mr. Singh has written to the Speaker about the conference.

Mr. Singh said he could look into the money spent by the States in the fields of health, higher education, old reserve forests, drinking water supply, and payment of royalty on mining activity. He could monitor funds released for the Union Government schemes such as minimum needs programme, soil conservation, and grants to the States, through the CAG and the respective accountants-general.

He wondered why the bureaucrats waited till December to release funds and forced everybody to go on a spending spree within three months, which gave scope for corruption. There should be guidelines for periodic review of files and release of funds to prevent this. The PAC could do the job, provided it was given more powers.

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