E-Paper
Audit report flags irregularities, violation of rules by NIT Kurukshetra
An annual audit report has highlighted irregularities and contraventions of rules by the National Institute of Technology (NIT), Kurukshetra
An annual audit report has highlighted irregularities and contraventions of rules by the National Institute of Technology (NIT), Kurukshetra.
In the audit conducted by the CAG’s audit party under assistant audit officer Vinod Prakash and supervised by director general of audit (central) Chandigarh Munish Kumar Leekha from July 5 to July 16, irregularities in the establishment of Siemens Centre of Excellence (SCoE) of ₹188.62 crore, contraventions of prescribed rules and indiscretion in the grant of extension to the agencies, procurement of goods and services besides irregularities in the grant of Grade Pay and maintaining service record of 23 officials were detected.
NIT Kurukshetra was granted approval by the finance committee to establish the Centre of Excellence (CoE) and placed the project order with Siemens Industries Software India Private Limited for a total project cost of ₹188.85 crore. Of this, the share of NIT was ₹20.71 crore plus 18% GST, while the rest of the project cost, the grant-in-kind, was to be provided by the Siemens as per global academic programme.
But during the audit, it was noticed that the MHRD, in a letter on February 6, 2019, conveyed approval for setting up of SCoE at NIT Kurukshetra as per the CoE guidelines approved by the Union ministry of human resource development (MHRD).
According to the report, the institute placed a purchase order for setting up of SCoE and the institute executed a tripartite agreement with the agencies on March 22, 2019.
The check depicted that the agency released payment of ₹21.95 crore up to March, 2021 and the payment was made from the Corpus fund by diverting funds available towards procurement of services instead of seeking regular grants from the ministry concerned, which is irregular, asserted the report, further seeking justification on the proposal of setting up the CoE leading to allotment of purchase SIS India being a single-service provider without providing opportunity to other service providers, in contradiction of Rule 149 of the General Finance Rules (GFR), 2017.
The report also revealed irregularities in the ₹13.77 crore grant of extension to three private agencies in violation of Rule 198 of the GFR, 2017. It was noticed that the institute deployed highly skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled manpower through different agencies on account of housekeeping, farmhouse, with the same terms and conditions from the existing agencies and fresh tenders were not called timely in contravention of the Contract Labour Act, 1970, Workman’s Compensation Act, EPF, ESI and MP Acts.
It also flagged serious violation of Rule 149 GFR, 2017 in procurement of various components worth ₹33.06 crore for 2020-21. The report mentioned that procurement of only ₹66.42 lakh was made from government e-marketplace and 98% procurement for ₹32.39 crore was made from open market in contravention of Rule 155 of GFR, 2017.
Similar violations were reported in procurement of library books amounting to ₹3.39 crore and irregular purchase of sports articles of ₹16.60 lakh by calling e-tendering instead of procuring articles on GeM as prescribed under Rule 149 of the GFR, 2017.
It also mentioned non-conducting of physical verification of furniture, equipment, store and stock besides irregularities in maintaining service records of 23 staff members.
However, the report mentioned that all minor irregularities and points noticed during the course of audit were discussed and settled on the spot but it also mentioned that on being pointed out the institute did not submit any reply over the irregularities highlighted in the previous reports since 2010-11.
The non-conducting of physical verification of furniture, equipment, store and stock and irregularities in grant of grade pay and maintaining of service record of 23 staff members were also highlighted.
Reacting to the irregularities in the audit report, NIT Kurukshetra officiating director Prof Akhilesh Swarup said, “These things are routine and it is an official process. The auditors come from different backgrounds and something of technical nature they do not understand properly. Also, they do not interact with the people concerned but do their part of duty and then the people concerned respond to it.”
“But the NIT is a public institution and is responsible for putting its audit and annual finance report in the Parliament every year and all things are scrutinised again,” he said.
“Even if irregularities happen, the MHRD has a mechanism to check it as it is public money. There are many checks and balances. The NIT is answerable to everything and will definitely submit its report to the authorities when required,” he added.
