and thence into certain numbered swiss bank accounts.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Girish
From: Girish
| The revelation by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) that the government has been overstating the spending on its flagship programmes and other schemes meant for the welfare of the aam aadmi is distressing, but not a surprise. The report, released two weeks ago, said that funds worth over Rs 51,000 crore allocated for these programmes in 2007-08 were actually transferred to the bank accounts of non-government organisations (NGOs), autonomous bodies and district authorities. The government was apparently clueless as to how these funds were actually used, as the accounts of these agencies were not subjected to any official checks. It was not surprising, therefore, as pointed out by the CAG, that these funds either remained unspent or were diverted to other, usually unspecified, purposes, thereby depriving the intended beneficiaries, mostly the poor. The CAG discovered that part of the money from the Social and Infrastructure Development Fund (SIDF) was actually spent on cultural activities, including celebration of the 150th year of the 1857 revolt, now called the first war of independence. To take another instance, of the Rs 20,000 crore or so collected under the Universal Service Obligation Fund between 2003 and 2008, by imposing a 5 per cent levy on telecom licensees' gross revenues, only Rs 6,000 crore were used for the intended purpose of subsidising rural telephony. The remaining amount was not even deposited in the Fund. |
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