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Board of Governors ‘JaKeGA’ failed in their obligations

INDU SHARMA. Dated: 12/7/2018 11:46:05 PM

Corrupt officials having a field day with impunity

JAMMU, Dec 7: The state government under the Governor’s Rule appears to have woken up from its deep slumber after a period of seven years in 2017 to look into the functioning of the Jammu and Kashmir e-Governance Agency (JaKeGA) while its failures have been highlighted in the media.
It is also strange that the state government failed to take notice of these failures despite the fact that cases have been registered for swindling of funds by the JaKeGA to the tune of crores of Rupees in 2015 by the Vigilance Organisation Kashmir (VOK). The Members of the Legislative Assembly, RTI activists and media houses highlighted these failures, the state government did not take a serious note of the misuse of funds by the concerned officers.
Surprisingly, JaKeGA, the functioning of which is supervised by the Board of Governors headed by the Chief Secretary as Chairman and 14 other members also failed in their obligations as mandated under the Registration of Societies Act and acted as mute spectators.
Taking cognizance of the matter, the then Director Finance, IT Department, J&K on 25/8/2017 sent a note to Commissioner/secretary, IT J&K drawing his attention towards the matter for not providing the records to the Accountant General (AG) for which he issued half margins. Account Officer (AO), JaKeGA pointed out since he was not provided the entire records by IT Department, therefore, he could not reply to the half margin of the AG.
On the half margins issued by AG it was averred that whatever the record was available with the IT department was handed over to AO, JaKeGA at the time he started exercising drawing and disbursing powers of the agency. It was further held that a lot of record had been destroyed in a fire that broke out in the year 2011 in old block of Civil Secretariat for which a F.I.R. was registered by General Administration Department (GAD).
Again it was submitted that a lot of record was destroyed in flash flood of year 2014 and added that during this period a number of files had been handed over to State Vigilance Organisation (SVO) which they were investigating in connection with different cases of JaKeGA.
Keeping in view these circumstances it was suggested to constitute a committee to be headed by senior level officers form Administrative wing to be assisted by deputy secretary (IT), AO, JaKeGA and AAO, IT to verify the facts with respect to loss of official records due to natural calamity/fire to apprise the administrative department of the factual position pertaining to destruction/availability of records so that the further action in the matter could be initiated.
According to sources, the Commissioner/Secretary, IT department returned the file to the director finance with remarks “please refer with rule position” and no committee was constituted to look into the serious allegations.
It is pertinent to mention here that Vigilance Organisation Kashmir (VOK), registered a case under the Prevention of Corruption Act on 31/01/2017 against these officials, of the Information Technology Department then system executive Dara Singh, , the financial advisor and CAO Khem Raj, Director, Finance, Satnam Singh, the then senior assistant/cashier Farooq Ahmad and other officials in league with each other and vendors, suppliers and others, abused their official position for undue pecuniary advantage thereby causing a huge loss to the state exchequer for procuring items and goods without following the financial code since 2011 to 2015.
But till date even the case registered by VOK is still pending investigation and the accused persons who were booked for their acts of commission and omission retired respectfully and it is learnt that some of them have been vested with plum postings.
But it is ironical that neither IT Department nor the State Government bothered to constitute a committee of officers to look into the functioning pertaining to mismanagement of funds and the remarks made by the State Accountant General and Auditors.