Hyderabad, January 29: The Public Accounts Committee, headed by senior Telugu Desam member N Janardhan Reddy, today directed senior officials concerned (of finance and social welfare departments) to take disciplinary action against erring officials for failure to submit vouchers relating to AC (Abstract Contingent) and DC (Detailed Contingent) bills to the tune of about Rs 102 crore.
All the officials responsible for the lapse should be identified within 15 days and disciplinary action initiated against the guilty, it said.
The committee, which met in the Assembly Committee Hall, took up the subject relating to SC, ST and BC welfare activities. Members M Padmaja, B Gopalakrishna Reddy, B Mohan Reddy, A Vivekananda Reddy, P Sudhakar Reddy, KR Amos and others attended.
It is learnt that the committee found that the officials who had taken advances amounting to about Rs 102 crore under 75 AC and four DC bills between 2001 and 2008 had failed to submit vouchers to the government within the specified time limit of one month.
They pulled up senior officials concerned in the finance and social welfare departments for failure to take action against the erring officials. Steps should be taken for proper maintenance of accounts, it noted.
With regard to the scholarship scam involving an amount of Rs 100 crore in year 2002, the PAC directed the finance department to take steps for recovery of the amount from the guilty under the Revenue Recovery Act. Some officials, including a social welfare director, involved in the case were dead, they pointed out.
In reply, the senior officials said that they had already attached a property i.e. a theatre located at Kacheguda belonging to the guilty involved in the scam. And steps were being taken for recovery of the remaining amount from close relatives of the guilty in accordance with the RR Act. Steps were already taken for online release of tuition fee reimbursement and payment of scholarship amounts to educational institutions and individual bank accounts of the students concerned in order to avert irregularities, they claimed.
While reviewing the functioning of social welfare hostels, the PAC asked finance department officials to take steps for recovery of ` 44 lakh paid to the APTS for supply of biometric systems to the hostels. All the systems were returned to the APTS for failure to meet the purpose but the latter did not return the amount paid to it by the social welfare department.
–Agencies