PERFORMANCE AUDIT OF BRGF IN
NALGONDA DIST.
INTRODUCTION
OBJECTIVES OF THE PROGRAMME
ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE
AUDIT OBJECTIVES
AUDIT CRITIERIA
AUDIT SCOPE (AND
SAMPLING)
AUDIT FINDINGS
PLANNING
FUND MANAGEMENT
IMPLEMENTATION OF THE SCHEME
WORKS MANAGEMENT
MAINTENANCE OF RECORDS
SOCIAL AUDIT
MONITORING
CONCLUSIONS
RECOMMENDATIONS
1. INTRODUCTION
TO THE SCHEME
The
Government of India have launched the Backward Regions Grant Fund (B R G F)
Scheme to redress regional imbalances in development. The fund will provide
financial resources for supplementing and converging existing developmental
inflows into identified districts. The
scheme has been started from 2007-08 financial year as part of Eleventh Finance
Commission’s Recommendations and will be in force up to 2011-12 financial year
and is likely to be continued up to next Five Year Plan.
The
purpose of the Scheme is to bridge critical gaps in local infrastructure and
other development requirements that are not being adequately met through
existing inflows. This plan will
integrate multiple programmes that are in operation in the district concerned
and therefore address backwardness through a combination of resources that flow
to the district.
Programmes
identified for implementation under the Fund will be selected through people’s
participation, particularly through Gram and Ward Sabhas in the rural areas and
Area Sabhas and Ward Committees in the urban areas. Participatory plans will be prepared in each
Panchayat and Municipality, which would take into account all resources being
spent in the area of the Panchahat
In
the state of Andhra Pradesh, 13 districts have been selected for implementation
of the Scheme of B R G F. They are:
Adilabad, Anantpur, Chittoor,
Cudappah, Karimnagar, Khamman, Mahabubnagar, Medak, Nalgonda, Nizamabad,
Rangareddy, Vizianagaram and Warangal
The BRGF benefits 13 of the 23
districts in Andhra Pradesh, and covers 3,93,94,922 people. The BRGF covers 655
Intermediate Panchayats (Mandals) of the 1,127 Mandals in the State of Andhra
Pradesn, 12,969 Gram Panchayats (of the 28,214) and 67 urban local bodies (out
of the 210).
2. OBJECTIVES OF THE PROGRAMME
To
Bridge critical gaps in local infrastructure and other development requirements
that are not being adequately met through existing inflows
To
Strengthen, to this end Panchayath and Municipality level governance with more
appropriate capacity building, to facilitate participatory planning, decision
making, implementation and monitoring, to reflect local felt needs,
To
Provide professional support to local bodies for planning, implementation and
monitoring their plans
To improve the
performance and delivery of critical functions assigned to Panchayaths, and
counter possible efficiency and equity losses on account of inadequate local
capacity.
The expected
outcome of the BRGF is to: “Mitigate regional imbalances, contribute towards
poverty alleviation in backward districts and promote accountable and
responsible Panchayats and Municipalities.
3. ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE
(FUND FLOW)
GOVERNMENT OF
INDIA
 |
UNION
MINSTRY OF
PANCHAYAT RAJ
DEPARTMENT
|
COMMISSIONER OF PANCHAYAT RAJ
GOVERNMENT OF ANDHRA PRADESH
4. FUND MANAGEMENT
Norms for Distribution of
funds between districts:
o
Every
district will receive a fixed minimum amount of Rs. 10 crore per annuma as Capacity Enhancement Fund.
o
Funds
will be allocated on the basis of population and area of the district vis-vis
the total population , area of all backward districts.
o
50%
allocation will be allocated on the basis of the share of the population
of the district in the total population of all backward districts.
o
The
remaining 50% will be distributed on the basis of the share of the area of the
district in the total area of all backward districts.
BRGF in Nalgonda District:
The Fund of the BRGF is received from the Commissioner of Panchayath Raj,
Hyderabad to the Chief Executive Officer, Nalgonda from 2007-08 financial year
onwards. The fund thus received is
divided into three parts namely,
- Gram Panchayaths Share i.e. 50% of the fund
- Mandal Parishath Share i.e. 30% of the fund
- Zilla Parishad Share i.e. 20% of the fund
Among the fund available in the 20% Share of Zilla Parishad, it is allotted to all the Three Executive Engineer
(P.R) Units and to the ULBs. The
allocation to ULBs is done only from 2008-09 onwards. There are four Municipalities in Nalgonda
District. They are:
- Bhongir 2. Miryalaguda 3. Nalgonda 4. Suryapet
AUDIT
OBJECTIVES
Ø
To find out the realisation of objectives framed
for b r g f scheme
Ø
To examine the expenditure incurred under b r g
f scheme in accordance with the guidelines laid down by the government of india
Ø
To find out the outputs of the scheme in
qualitative and quantitative terms
Ø
To elucidate the strengths and weaknesses in
implementation of the scheme
Ø
To suggest a model path for execution of
schematic recommendations
AUDIT AUTHORITY
According to Para 4.12 of the guidelines
issued by the Ministry of Panchayath Raj, Government of India, “ Regular
Physical and financial audit of the works under the Scheme shall be carried out
at the end of each financial year, in each district. The audit shall be done by Local Fund auditors. The audit report together with Action Taken
on the Auditor’s observations is required to be submitted along with the
proposal for release of second installment of funds. Such Action Taken Note should be
authenticated by Auditor”
AUDIT CRITERIA: While
conducting the audit of the Scheme the following procedures were followed:
v
To examine whether the guidelines issued by the
Panchayath Raj Ministry, Government of India have been strictly adhered
v
To examine whether the list of Priority Scheme
(Annexure 4 of Guidelines) were taken into account while conducting the audit
v
As per the guidelines of G O I, all the funds of
BRGF shall be kept separately either in a Nationalized Bank or Post
office. It is to be watched carefully
v
To examine whether a separate Cash Book was
maintained or not by the executive authorities
v
To examine whether Account Code and Financial
Codes were followed in maintaining Accounts.
v
To examine whether Statutory deductions like
VAT, IT etc and Labour Cess were deducted from the work bills
v
To examine whether “Each Panchayath has publicly displayed the
details of all scheme works” as per rules
Salient
Feature in Fund Management in Nalgonda District:
The Executive Authorities in
Nalgonda District have taken a decision that the drawls from the BRGF Scheme
for Gram Panchayaths (50 %) should be drawn only through Joint Cheque Power
i.e. the Sarpanch concerned and the Mandal Parishath Development officer
concerned.
AUDIT SCOPE
SCOPE of BRGF in Nalgonda District:
There are 1178 Gram Panchayaths, 59 Mandal Parishaths, 4 Municipalities
and 3 Executive Engineer Units in the district along with the 2 units of RWS. The
audit of the B R G F scheme has been extended to all the institutions mentioned
below.
IMPLEMENTATION OF THE SCHEME
The implementation process of the
scheme is assigned to the grass root level agencies. The Gram Panchayath shall
identify the developmental or welfare activities that are essential to their
village. All the proposals are submitted
to the CEO, ZP and they are discussed in the Zilla Parishath Council and
administrative sanction is accorded. The
Technical sanction is granted by the Panchat Raj Engineers wherever
necessary. The Scheme is being
implemented at all the three tier Panchayath Raj institutions as mentioned in
the 73rd amendment of Indian Constitution.
To facilitate release of BRGF
funds to the District for the year
2010-11 it is compulsory to prepare an Annual Action
and to submit it to the high power
committee by the District Planning Committee. The Higher Power Committee will
be headed by the Chief Secretary of the State. The District Collectors are
requested to adhere to the dates prescribed by the High Power committee scrupulously
lest the district shall lose the BRGF amount for 2009-10.
WORKS MANAGEMENT
Developmental
and Welfare Activities
Anganwadi
Buildings, Gram Panchayath Buildings,
SC/ST Hostel
Buildings, BC Hostel Building
Drinking Water
facility, Animal Husbandry, Electrification
Educational
Institutions buildings, Health Institutions (PHCs) development etc.,
The proposals are resolved in Gram
Sabha and submitted to the Executive Authorities for sanction.
MAINTENANCE OF RECORDS
All the records of B R G F Scheme
are maintained by the Executive Authorities concerned. The records at Gram Panchayath level are
maintained by either Sarpanch or Panchayath Secretary. The registers of works pertaining to Mandal
Parishads are maintained by the Mandal Parishad Development Officer. The Commissioner, Municipal Council concerned
and the Executive Engineer (P.R) are the custodians of the B R G F scheme
records
The following
records are maintained by the Executive Authorities:
Cash Book, Bank Pass Book, Grants Register,
Register of Technical and Administrative Sanctions, Register of
Development works (Out puts), Measurement Books of works
SOCIAL AUDIT
Social Audit and Vigilance at
grass root level: The State
Governments are instructed to issue clear guidelines to the Executive
Authorities that Social Audit may be conducted by the Gram Sabhas in Rural
Areas and Ward Committes in Urban Areas.
The Gram Sabha will authorize the issuance of Utilization Certificates
of funds allocated for the plans, projects or programmes of the Panchayat as
per the process followed in accordance with guidelines issued in the National
Rural Employment Guarantee Act. In the
audit observations, it was noticed that Social Audit has not been conducted anywhere.
Regarding the Social Audit, the First
Independent Review Mission (Team) headed by World Bank officials namely Yongmei Zhou, Jesper Steffensen, K. Amarendra Singh for studying the
implementation of Backward Regions Grant Fund in Andhra Pradesh State,
commented like this:
“
The Gram Panchayats are understanding that Utilization Certificates will be
done as part of the audit, not as the prescribed social audit. The social audit
is generally very weak or non-existing within the use of the BRGF. It is
surprising that this is not combined with similar initiatives under other
programmes such as NREGS ”
MONITORING
All the developmental and welfare
activities are being monitored by different authorities at various levels. The prime authority is the Ministry of
Panchayath Raj, Government of India that would supervise all the Scheme
activities. The Commissioner of
Panchayath Raj is the state level monitoring authority. The Chief Executive
Officers, Zilla Parishad are the District level monitoring officer. The other authorities are Mandal Parishad Development
Officer, Extension Officer (PR & RD), District Panchayath Officer.
AUDIT FINDINGS
During 2010-11 the U L Bs are allotted funds like this:
The
total amount allocated to all the four Municipal Councils is 264.30 Lakhs. This
amount is spent on Infrastructural development such as Side Drains, Roads,
Drinking water facility, Compound walls to Schools etc.,
Achievement of
works in Urban Local Bodies
Nature
of work
|
Proposed
|
Completed
|
Shortfall
|
Drains
|
41
|
41
|
Nil
|
Roads
|
19
|
17
|
02
|
Drinking Water
|
08
|
06
|
02
|
Compound walls
|
02
|
02
|
Nil
|
Others
|
15
|
09
|
06
|
Total
|
85
|
75
|
10
|
An
amount of Rs. 4.52 Crores have been allotted to the three units of Executive
Engineer (P.R), namely, Bhongir, Miryalaguda and Nalgonda and the units of RWS
I and II. All the Municipal Councils and the E.E (P.R) units including the RWS
units have spent the allocated amounts completely.
Expenditure of EE (PR) units and RWS I & II
Non- Utilisation
of Grants – During the year 2010-11
Sl.No
|
Fund Sanctioned
|
Fund utilized
|
Unspent balance
|
Percent of
Utilisation
|
1
|
34,62,25,416
|
32,76,10,000
|
1,86,15,416
|
95
%
|
EXPENDITURE STATEMENT
S.No
|
Expenditure
incurred
|
|
1
|
Expenditure
under G.P. Share (50%)
|
18,39,20,000
|
2
|
Expenditure
under M.P. Share (30%)
|
7,20,00,000
|
3
|
Expenditure
under Z.P Share (20%)
|
7,16,30,000
|
7
|
Total
Expenditure
|
32,76,10,000
|
Closing balance: Rs.
1,86,15,416
Statement of Expenditure (Component wise)
SC
|
ST
|
General
|
|||
Receipts
|
Expenditure
|
Receipts
|
Expenditure
|
Receipts
|
Expenditure
|
5,89,35,000
|
5,70,60,000
|
2,81,58,500
|
2,49,05,000
|
25,90,82,000
|
24,56,00,000
|
Total number of works Proposed and Completed
S.No
|
Component
|
Works proposed
|
Works
completed
|
Shortfall
|
1
|
SC
|
947
|
855
|
92
|
2
|
ST
|
523
|
457
|
66
|
3
|
GEN
|
2579
|
2298
|
281
|
Total
|
4049
|
3610
|
439
|
STATEMENT
SHOWING ACHIEVEMENT OF BRGF SCHEME DURING
2010-11
As
per the proposals proposed by the public representatives, the following works
have been included in the Action for the year 2010-11. The execution of works and the particulars of
target achieved are furnished below
S.NO
|
NAME OF THE WORK
|
TARGET PROPOSED
No.
|
TARGET ACHIEVED
No.
|
1
|
Anganwadi
Buildings
|
124
|
115
|
2
|
GP
Buildings
|
91
|
75
|
3
|
Miscellaneous
Works
|
1064
|
970
|
4
|
Drinking
Water Units
|
608
|
575
|
5
|
Animal
Husbandry Units
|
27
|
18
|
6
|
Primary
Health Centres
|
12
|
08
|
7
|
Rural
Electrification
(High
Mast Lights)
|
106
|
97
|
8
|
School
Compound walls
|
157
|
118
|
9
|
Electrification
|
106
|
97
|
10
|
Roads
|
683
|
590
|
11
|
Drains
|
1148
|
1043
|
Total
|
4049
|
3610
|
Utilization
of funds during 2010-11
Fund
released during 2010-11 Rs. 27.75 Crores
Un
spent amounts in 2009-10 Rs.
6.86 Crores
………………….
Total
fund available during 2010-11 Rs. 34.62 Crores
Total
fund spent during 2010-11 Rs. 32.76 Crores
………………….
Un spent amount Rs. 1.86 Crores
………………….
.
Important
Lapses observed in implementation of the Scheme:
In
spite of good achievements made in the Scheme as mentioned above, there are
some lapses found during the course of audit in the district. They are:
Lapses
in Capacity Building programmes:
GUIDELINES
NOT FOLLOWED: As per Annexure – 4 of
BRGF guidelines given by the Ministry of Panchayath Raj, Government of India, the list of Priority
schemes for funds earmarked for SC, ST development are as follows:
§
Residential
intermediate colleges/hostels for SC, ST children
- Rural play grounds
- One time support (of about 20 lakhs) to reputed NGOs who have land for setting up secondary schools/colleges for girls
- Tractors with trolleys and agricultural implements to SHGs of 20 small/marginal SC, ST farmers
- Training of educated youth in areas such as computers, repairs of mobile phones, driving etc.,
- Pre- recruitment training for para military and other security forces
·
The priority schemes, such as ‘rural play
grounds’, ‘one time support to NGO to set up schools/colleges’ were completely ignored
·
In particular, the priority item no. 7 and 8 of
guidelines which were intended to develop Human Resources among SC,ST youth were
completely neglected. The very objective
of introducing BRG Funds for SC, ST was not found to be fulfilled.
CONCLUSIONS
As per the guidelines, there are two
aspects in development.
1.
Infrastructural Development and
2.
Individual Development
As
part of Infrastructural development, the executive agencies have taken up
infrastructural developmental activities like construction of School buildings, Anganwadis, Health Centres
etc.,
As
per the audit observations in Nalgonda
District, the authorities have more concentrated on Infrastructural Development
rather than Individual or Human Resource Development. Human resource is a term used to describe the
individuals who make up the workforce of an organization
The
famous Educationist Peter Drucker says “ an ordinary person cannot be called as
a Resource, unless he is educated and trained”. The importance of training the
youth is emphasized here. As per the
BRGF guidelines in Annexure-4, the Priority Schemes No.7 & 8 emphasize the
need and importance of training the Rural Youth. In the instruction, it is stressed that the
rural youth may be provided Training in the fields such as Computers, Repairs
of Mobile Phones and Driving etc.,
Usually
rural Youth are Physically fit & sound and they are suitable for the posts
in Military and other Security Forces. Keeping in view this fact, the
Government of India recommended to give Pre-Recruitment training to Rural Youth
to join Military Forces as part of BRGF programmes.
The
success stories of BRGF are to be collected, printed and distributed through
“NEWS LETTER”. The executive authorities
have not brought out any such newsletters. If the newsletters had been
published, it would have given much publicity to the BRGF Scheme.
RECOMMENDATIONS
For
effective implementation of the Scheme:
1.
Equal balance between infrastructural and individual
development is to be ensured in spending BRG Funds.
2.
The executive authorities may frame the Scheme works
keeping in view of the priority list suggested by the Government of India
3.
For effective implementation of the scheme, visits to
the field may be done at regular intervals by the executive agencies
4.
The important reason for regional imbalances is
economic condition of the people and literacy rate. Steps may be taken up to raise the economic
status of the people in the region
5.
Unique programmes of BRGF such as training the youth
among SC,ST for Self employment shall be implemented
6.
Pre-Recruitment training to Rural Youth for joining
Para Military and other Security Forces.
7.
Effective steps should be taken to bring out not only
the quantitative development but also Qualitative Development in the region.
Registers to
be maintained
1.
Register of Grants Utilization
2.
Register of works sanctioned
3.
Register of assets created
RESULT OF
AUDIT
The
General result of audit may be treated as satisfactory
TOTAL RECEIPS
AND EXPENDITURE
The
total receipts and expenditure during the year were Rs. 34,62,25,416 and Rs. 32,76,10,000 respectively
DIST.
AUDIT OFFICER
STATE
AUDIT, NALGONDA
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