New Delhi, Mar 24: Various autonomous bodies under the Ministry of Education made payments of ad hoc bonus to their employees without required approvals resulting in irregular payments amounting to over Rs 6 crore, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has pointed out. In an audit report tabled on Wednesday in Parliament, the CAG has highlighted that the payments of Non Productivity Linked Bonus (ad hoc bonus) were made during the period from 2015-16 to 2017-18.
“The Ministry of Finance (MoF) issued Office Memorandum (OM) for the grant of ad hoc bonus to the central government employees annually. Orders for the grant of this ad hoc bonus, to the Central Autonomous Bodies (CABs) funded by central government, are issued separately every year,” the CAG report said. “Audit observed that OMs for the grant of ad hoc bonus to central government employees were issued for the period from 2015-16 to 2017-18. Further, the ministry issued orders for the grant of ad hoc bonus to CABs for the year 2014-15.
However, no such orders were issued by MoF to the CABs, for the period from 2015-16 to 2017-18. “Despite this, audit noticed that 13 CABs paid ad hoc bonus to their employees, amounting to Rs 15.87 crore, during the years 2015-16, 2016-17 and 2017-18. This was done without the requisite orders from MoF. Out of Rs 15.87 crore, Rs 9.79 crore had been recovered,” it added. The report has also pointed out that Banaras Hindu University, gave undue favour to a private firm by changing the terms of payment, in contravention of the tender terms, which has resulted in short realisation of variable monthly licence fee of Rs 2.44 crore. Similarly, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay, has come under scanner for “avoidable extra expenditure of Rs 1.29 crore on purchase of additional licences”. “IIT-B failed to effectively communicate their requirements for decentralised mode of operation to the vendor for implementation SAP ERP in IIT-B and decided to embark on ERP solution suggested by the vendor without a clear definition of what the project entailed, thereby incurring avoidable extra expenditure of Rs 1.29 crore on purchase of additional licences,” the report said.
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