The transaction audit report of the Comptroller-and-Auditor-General on North Cachar Hills Autonomous District Council has exposed serious financial irregularities of more than `300 crores in between January 2007 and June 9, 2010 in Assam.
Disclosing that special audit of the account of the NC Hills was conducted by the CAG on a specific request of the Assam government, sources in the state government told this newspaper that government had given limited mandate to the CAG for auditing the account of a specific period (January 2007 to June 9, 2010).
It is significant that the Union home secretary G.K. Pillai had announced that CAG would be asked to audit the account of the NC Hills district council since 2001 in the wake of allegation of `1,000 crore scam in the council.
The scam money was also alleged to have gone to militant organisations.
As records were not made available for audit, the CAG submitted a preliminary report to the government in July this year.
Referring the contents of the report, sources said that the CAG, which was asked to audit the accounts of the council was not given access to necessary records to verify if money spent from consolidated fund of the state for the North Cachar Hills district council had really reached to the drawing and disbursing officers (DDO) of the council in Halflong or not.
Pointing out that neither the hills area development department, which released the fund, nor the district council, which spent the money could produce any vouchers and bills, sources said that due to non-production of reports CAG could not reach to any conclusion.
The limited available records of the council revealed that funds released from the state government were parked in bank accounts instead of releasing through treasury following the financial rules of submitting the vouchers.