CAG reports to be reviewed by two House panels: AG

Jammu, Mar 31: Accountant General (Audit) J&K Tsewang Tharchin Tuesday asserted that two House Committees viz., Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and Committee on Public Undertakings would deliberate on the findings of eight reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India tabled in the J&K Legislative Assembly to take call on the action to be taken.

Tharchin, while addressing a press conference at AG Office, Jammu, stated that the audit report on conservation and management of lakes in J&K for the period ended March 2022 noticed that there were land use changes in Dal Lake due to non-acquisition of land from Dal dwellers, malfunctioning of Sewage Treatment Plants (STPs), improper de-weeding mechanism and inadequate monitoring and surveillance mechanism.

“Consequently, the open water area in Dal Lake could not be restored.

There were inadequacies in the implementation of Lake conservation programme under National Lake Conservation Programme (NLCP), Prime Minister’s Reconstruction Plan (PMRP) and other programme activities. Audit also noticed deficiencies in installation and upgradation of STPs, treatment of solid waste, extracted weed and sludge as well as providing sewage disposal facilities to households and sewer networking of “mohallas”. It was observed that 6 STPs were polluting and not actually treating,” he stated, while referring to the findings of the audit.

He informed that eight reports tabled in the House included reports on J&K UT finances; health structure (post COVID); working of Jammu University; conservation and management of lakes in J&K; Public Sector Undertakings; Direct Benefit Transfer; Solid Waste Management; Central Road funds; Jhelum Tawi Flood Recovery Project; PM Khanij Kalyan Yojana; NRLM and Revenue pertaining to GST and E-Way bill.

Mukesh Kumar Bramhane Senior Deputy Accountant General (Accounts) and Ankush Kumar, Deputy Accountant General (AMG-Administration) accompanied him during the presser at AG office.

Referring to report on J&K lakes, Tsewang Tharchin mentioned that inadequacies were also noticed in relocation and alignment of houseboats, shifting of hotels, augmentation of water budget of the Lake, restoration and development works, catchment management works and relocation and rehabilitation of Dal Lake dwellers.

“Due to non-constitution of monitoring bodies, the Conservation and Management programme of Wullar lake had suffered as policy matters of Wullar Conservation and Management Authority (WUCMA) could not be decided. Non-formulation of a detailed plan resulted in the deprival of financial assistance from the Government of India for rejuvenation and restoration of Wular Lake. Insufficient afforestation in degraded forests resulted in increase of siltation in the lake and consequent hastening ageing of the lake,” he stated.

According to the audit report, there were significant changes in land use and classification use of areas of lakes.

Analysis of remote sensing data for the period 2014-2020 related to 63 test-checked Lakes revealed that there was decrease of area of open water, and increase of area in other land uses like built-up, pasture, vacant land, fallow land, agriculture, horticulture, plantation etc.

Sharing another interesting finding of the audit, Tharchin informed that the geo coordinates of the 63 audit sampled lakes provided by the EE&RSD were plotted by audit on Google Earth Pro on various timelines.

“It was found that seven lakes were not visible or had almost dried up. There were land use changes in Khushal Sar Lake and degradation and shrinkage of Anchar lake. Although Development Authorities were established for development of areas of five out of six detailed-checked Lakes, there were no clear directions and specific mandate with any of these authorities for conservation and management of lakes,” he stated.

Sharing some key audit findings about public health infrastructure in J&K and management of health services for the period ended March 2022, the Accountant General (Audit) J&K pointed out that there were persistent shortages in all the cadres in the health institutions.

As per audit findings, the government had not ensured availability of posts in the health sector as the sanctioned posts were not in keeping with the population to be served, affecting the health services adversely. This shortage was quite high in several key posts such as doctors, staff nurses, paramedical and other staff who play a very important role in delivering comprehensive healthcare to the beneficiaries.

Available manpower including the crucial manpower has not been distributed uniformly across the districts. Against the sanctioned strength of 46,115 posts, the UT of J&K had 30,745 (67 per cent) doctors, nurses and paramedical staff as of March 2022.

One government doctor was serving a population of 2,191 (2,461 in case of allopathic doctors) in the UT of J&K. The ratio of availability of doctors was better than the States of Haryana (4,081 doctors for 2.51 crore people i.e. one allopathic doctor per 6,212 persons) and Punjab (one allopathic doctor for 6,390 persons).

There was a skewed distribution of manpower as the shortfall of overall manpower was lowest (11.52 per cent) in Kulgam district and highest (43.55 per cent) in Kishtwar district.

“There was a shortage of specialists in Health and Medical Education Department (H&MED). Shortage of manpower in District Hospitals (DHs) had affected delivery of medical services resulting in either the patients having to wait in queues outside the OPDs for a long time or compelling the patients to approach other hospitals having such facility,” he pointed out, while referring to audit report.

Under the National Health Mission (NHM), shortage of doctors, paramedical staff and nurses in the UT of J&K was respectively 19 per cent, 08 per cent and 16 per cent in 2021-22. In the six sampled districts, although most of the emergency services were available in all the sampled District Hospitals except DH, Handwara, availability of Emergency Operation Theatre was not available in seven SDHs (out of 18 test-checked).

“Blood storage unit was not available in 10 SDHs (out of 18 test-checked) and nine CHCs (out of 10 test-checked). The Outpatient Department (OPD) services of ENT, Psychiatry, Ophthalmology and Skin & VD were not available in eight, nine, six and 13 DHs respectively. Moreover, all the required essential OPD services were not available in all 18 test-checked Sub-District Hospitals (SDHs) and all OPD services as required as per IPHS norms were not available in the 10 test-checked Community Health Centres (CHCs),” Tharchin shared.

As per findings, registration counters were also not found adequate in Tertiary Level Hospitals (TLHs) and District Hospitals (DHs).

Findings of other six audit reports too were shared by Tharchin in the presser.