CAG: Auditor finds no record of the beneficiaries of Rs 26,000 cr grants

HYDERABAD: The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has dropped another bombshell. Two of the Union ministries released grants of over Rs 26,000 crore in three years, but the auditor found no record of the beneficiaries.

In a majority of cases, no MoUs were signed, violating a practice all departments must comply with. While some grants were meant to create capital assets, the CAG, in its latest report on Union Government Finance Accounts, wondered if they met the purpose at all, while in some others, it didn’t rule out the possibility of fraud or misappropriation.

As part of its annual routine, the CAG reviewed the sanctioning and monitoring mechanism of grants, quality and effectiveness of the expenditure incurred in two ministries — the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the Ministry of Power.

The analysis brought to light that during FY14 and FY16, both the ministries separately released grants running into crores, but no centralised records, including names of the grantees, details and nature of assets created, amount of grants utilised, ownership of assets, were maintained.