Dimapur, May 17 (MExN): The state of Nagaland’s finances and its management continue its murky run in the report of the Comptroller & Auditor General of India (CAG) for year 2008. Among elaborate accounts on a myriad number of mismanagement and fraud financial dealings in a great majority of the state’s government departments, the CAG has also mentioned the Nagaland Armed Police department itself – for fraudulent withdrawal of lakhs of rupees.
According to the CAG report on year 2008 ending March 31, commandants of three Nagaland Armed Police battalions fraudulently drew lakhs of money by inflating total “pay-bills.” The CAG report named the 3rd NAP in Tuensang, 10th NAP Chumukedima and 1st NAP Chumukedima.
The CAG report said a central audit was made for pay-bills of the Nagaland Armed Police battalions. The bills were dated for the periods of April 2006, December 2006, January, February, April and May 2007. It was found that against the actual admissible net-total of Rs. 482.11 Lakh, the commandants of the NAP battalions drew Rs. 492.30 Lakh by inflating the net-totals. The CAG report said that the action resulted in a fraudulent “drawal” of Rs. 10.19 Lakh (“1st NAP-Rs.0.11 Lakh, 3rd NAP-Rs.5.69 Lakh and 10th NAP-Rs.4.39 Lakh”).
Interestingly, alongside the NAP was mentioned the Executive Engineer (EE) of Phek’s Electrical Division. The CAG said that on scrutinizing pay-bills (February and March 2007) the EE was revealed to have drawn Rs. 5.64 Lakh by inflating the net payable amount. The actual admissible net total was mentioned to be Rs. 3.64 Lakh only. This resulted in the fraudulent “drawal” of Rs. 2.Lakh, the CAG said.
The CAG said that the NAP commandants and “EE (DDOs)” as well as the treasury officers failed in exercising necessary statutory checks prescribed under rules. This failure resulted in the fraudulent “drawal” of Rs 12.19 Lakh. The Comptroller & Auditor General of India however added in its report that the three commandants in a reply dated June-July 2008, “accepted the facts”. Rs. 10.8 Lakh was stated to have been recovered by two commandants and deposited into the government’s account in May-June 2008, the CAG said. This matter was reported to the government in May-August 2008, the CAG said. However, like almost all the other footnotes at the bottom of every departmental page in the report, the CAG also wrote “reply has not been received.”
