Date:23/07/2004 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2004/07/23/stories/2004072309080400.htm

Andhra Pradesh

A `slow and steady' audit

By Dasu Kesava Rao

HYDERABAD, JULY 22. The leader may be hi-tech savvy or farmer-friendly. It does not matter. For, the bureaucracy he heads invariably subscribes to the time-tested dictum: slow and steady wins the race.

That the wheels of administration grind slow and haltingly has once again been proved. This time by Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University. The university's annual accounts and audit report for 1989-90 was presented to the Assembly by the Agriculture Minister, N. Raghuveera Reddy, on Wednesday.

Explaining the delay, the Minister said the annual accounts of the university were furnished to the Government the same year, but the Local Fund Audit Department, which audited the accounts, submitted its report on May 17, 1995.

With the varsity colleges, engineering divisions and research stations scattering all over the State, it took quite some time to get replies to the audit objections raised in the report. The job was finally done in April 2003.

The Minister went on assuring the House that preparation of replies and submission of audit reports for the years up to 1996-97 were being taken up on a `war-footing'. The delay caused in submission of the audit report may please be condoned, he urged the House.

In a manner of speaking, the wheel had turned a full circle. 1989-90 was the year when the Congress returned to power, lost it in 1994 and is just back again in office.

That was, interestingly, the time it took for the varsity to complete a report. Who can dispute that the wheels of administration grind slowly?