Such cases of unauthorised expenditure were
found in the case of tours led by well-known dance, music and theatre
and folk artistes.
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New Delhi, Sep 3:
If you thought taxpayer money was flowing only into dull and drab
sectors such as coal, mining among others, think again. The Indian
Council of Cultural Relations (ICCR) spent an “unauthorised” Rs 8.15
crore on sending 34 delegations to 70 countries during 2009-10 to
2011-12.
A report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) on autonomous
bodies, tabled in Parliament on Tuesday, found that that in several
cases, the ICCR had split the estimated expenditure to avoid obtaining
requisite approvals. As per the delegation of financial powers of the
council, expenditure beyond Rs 15 lakh requires approval of its
president.
However, the ICCR followed a practice of “splitting expenditure to avoid
obtaining approval of the president, ICCR, during approval of budget
estimates”, the audit report found.
For instance, two separate estimates of Rs 14.73 lakh and Rs 23.21 lakh
were submitted for a tour to China in April 2012 by the 38-member
theatre group led by Ratan Thiyam. Similar cases of splitting
expenditure were found in the case of tours led by well-known dance,
music and theatre and folk artistes, such as L Subramaniam, Ila Arun,
Penaz Masani, Tanushree Shankar, Uma Sharma among others.
The CAG report also found that the council was not following Government
instructions that officials should only travel by Air India.
During 2009-12, ICCR incurred 98.32 per cent expenditure on air travel by airlines other than Air India, the report said.
It also noted that the ICCR, which is under the administrative control
of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), had opened three Indian
Cultural Centres and was in the process of opening another eight without
the Ministry’s approval. Also, it was operating the posts of Director,
ICC, in various countries without requisite sanction by the Finance
Ministry.
The CAG report noted that in the absence of guidelines for appointment
of external directors, the ICCR had taken ‘arbitrary’ decisions. It
quoted the instance of appointment as directors of three journalists and
an academic, “who were working for different private agencies and their
pay was fixed as per their earning in the private sector.”
Also, the council incurred significant expenditure on procurement of
services by private firms, such as SEHER, Modern Stage Service Pvt Ltd,
etc., without following general financial rules.
The ICCR was set up in 1950 to establish, revive and strengthen cultural relations with other countries.