The CAG, in its report for the year 2008-09, has said that the heads of offices and next higher authorities of the state government who were required to comply with observations made in the Inspection Reports (IRs) and accordingly rectify the defects promptly hardly do so.

Settlement of audit objections/IRs, received from Principal Accountant General (audit) office is to be recorded in personal register and audit objection book. The head of a office is required to review these books fortnightly to ensure compliance of audit objections within the stipulated period (fortnight), the report said.

IRs related to 26 government departments were issued during the financial years 2003-09. But majority of the objections raised in the 5,561 IRs remained unanswered till March 2009. The CAG has observed that this indicates lack of responsiveness of the government towards audit observation which might lead to serious financial irregularities and losses.

The report has recommended that the government should ensure that a proper procedure is in place to ensure recovery of losses/outstanding/advances/overpayments in a time-bound manner.

Referring to non-submission of explanatory (action taken) notes, the report said that the secretaries of the departments concerned are required to submit these notes to assembly secretariat on each and every para and reviews included in audit report (AR) duly vetted by audit within two months from the date of presentation of the ARs before the state legislature without waiting for any notice or call from the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and explain circumstances and reasons behind occurrence of such irregularities and deviations from prescribed norms and the action proposed to be taken or already taken.

The department secretaries concerned are also expected to send two copies of self-explanatory actions taken notes (ATNs) to the PAG (audit) for vetting along with the relevant files and documents. The ATNs are to be sent within such period of time as may be decided by the PAC.

The report noted that as of December 2009, as many as 24 departments had not submitted the explanatory ATNs in respect of 44 reviews and 214 paragraphs pertaining to the period 1999-08.