Panjab University yet to settle accounts dating back to 1988, says audit report

Panjab University’s audit and inspection note for 2015-16 has pointed out that the varsity has failed to settle accounts of expenditure dating back to 1987-88. It also adds that no action has been taken on previous audit reports.

An important observation that the audit has made is that for teachers who continued in service beyond 60 years on the basis of stay granted by the Punjab and Haryana high court, the varsity continued to contribute towards their provident/general provident fund.

The audit report specifically requests the V-C that the university contribution of the period beyond 60 years and interest thereon, which is not payable to these employees be transferred back to the PU’s current account at the earliest. The amount is around Rs 5 crore.

The varsity is yet to respond or even reply to this suggestions, the audit notes, adding that the same suggestion had been made in previous two audit report as well.

The audit adds that payments in 311 cases during 2015-16 were admitted by the audit for want of compliance later on to avoid penalty, surcharge, contempt proceedings etc. Of these, 75 cases have got settled but in 236, PU has taken no action. PU has been directed to comply without any further delay.

Some cases where payments have been made, but were yet to hold up to audit scrutiny include electricity bill of the office of the registrar PU Chandigarh at his residence; payment of salary for the month of April and May, 2014 admitted under objection as a very special case for want of approval etc.

Payments of the junior research fellows amounting to Rs 10.83 crore was released from audit in 2015-16 under objection for want of receipt of grant from the UGC as per orders of the vice-chancellor. As per the rule, incurring of expenditure in anticipation of receipt of grant ordinarily is not permissible. PU has been asked to settle this matter.

During the test audit, it has been noticed that there are approximately 745 (A class- 2, B Class- 268, C Class- 475) employees approximately being paid salary out of budget head ‘outsourcing/contractual appointments’. The workload of each department has not been got assessed by the PU. Audit report has mentioned that no compliance in this regard has been done so far, even as this was pointed out in the audit note for 2009-10 and 2010-11.