Jammu, Apr 13: The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report has revealed that     lax supervision and absence of internal control mechanism in finances resulted in embezzlement of Rs 1.06 crore in two hospitals SMHS Srinagar and district hospital Pulwama in south Kashmir.
 The CAG in its annual report for year 2010-11, released recently states that Audit scrutiny (November/December 2009) of the records of Medical Superintendent, SMHS revealed that out of Rs 4.73 crore realized from April 2007 to December 2009 on account of sale of OPD/IPD tickets, medical facilities/investigation charges, and parking charges, Rs 70.60 lakh had not been accounted for and un authorizedly retained by the cashier. The non-accountal of huge sums by the cashier was facilitated due to lack of an internal control mechanism and lax supervision by the Drawing and Disbursing Officer (DDO). The failure of the DDO/Medical Superintendent in adhering to the monitoring system and internal controls as prescribed in the Financial Code resulted in misappropriation of revenue of Rs 1.03 crore.
 After the matter came into the notice of Principal Government Medical College, Srinagar and confirmation of the embezzlement, the quantum of misappropriation went up from Rs 70.60 lakh detected by the Audit, to Rs 1.03 crore. Out of this, Rs 54.10 lakh had been recovered (December 2009 to April 2010), thus leaving a balance Rs 48.70 lakh unrecovered from the delinquent official (August 2011).
 The delinquent cashier was placed under suspension (June 2010) and the Department stated (August 2011) that a case had been registered (August 2010) against the official by the State Vigilance Organization which also seized the relevant records for investigation.
 Meanwhile, scrutiny of records of the Medical Superintendent (DDO), District Hospital, Pulwama revealed that against Rs 18.06 lakh realized from January 9, 2010 to September 14, 2010 as OPD/IPD/DC/investigation charges by an official posted as incharge Registration section, Rs 14.89 lakh only had been deposited with the office cashier for onward deposition into the Hospital Development Fund (HDF) account, thereby, causing a loss of Rs 3.17 lakh.
 The CAG maintained that the embezzlement was facilitated due to lax supervision and non-observance of   prescribed control procedure by the DDO.
 “Reconciliation of work done reports of X-Ray, USG, ECG, Laboratory section, Blood bank and Dental section with the total revenue realized was not done to see whether the revenue realized and the total work done by respective sections were in agreement with each other. Moreover the cash receipts were not entered in the subsidiary cash book promptly and were never   checked by the concerned RMOs or the Medical Superintendent nor they conducted surprise checks” the report detected.

Lastupdate on : Fri, 13 Apr 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Fri, 13 Apr 2012 18:30:00 GMT
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