Shimla, November 12
A special audit conducted by the Comptroller and Auditor General on the directions of the Governor, Mr V.S. Kokje, has indicted the Vice-Chancellor of Himachal Pradesh University, Dr S.D. Sharma, directly linking him with the irregularities in the printing of question papers.
The 37-page audit report, submitted to Mr Kokje yesterday, has pointed out that the contract for the printing of question papers and booklets was awarded without observing procedural norms, causing a wrongful loss of Rs 43.49 lakh to the university from January 2002 to March 2003. Dr Sharma had personally obtained three quotations for the purpose and awarded contract on January 9, 2002, on the spot.
The existing rates were not kept in view while awarding the contract and no comparison was made. No condition for ensuring the quality of paper to be used and printing was imposed. It was found that the firm had used poor quality paper for printing. Contrary to the prevailing practice of giving 50 per cent payment as advance, the entire payment was made in advance and no action was taken against it despite mistakes and other shortcomings in the printing of question papers. As many as 7,110 question papers were received short and the minimum quantity of question papers to be printed was fixed at 300, even though in many cases only 100 papers were actually printed.
In all Rs 72,24,128 was drawn as advance for secrecy work. The entire expenditure was irregular, as under the statutes of the university, the secrecy work is assigned to the Controller of Examination and the Additional Controller of Examination. Besides, a sum of Rs 20 lakh was diverted from the NRI fund for secrecy work.
In this case, the Vice-Chancellor allotted the secrecy work to a Deputy Registrar in violation of the statues. The officer concerned drew funds from the finance officer in cash with the approval of the Vice-Chancellor for payment to the printer.
Serious irregularities have also been revealed in the appointment of teaching and non-teaching staff. As many as 59 employees of the D staff category were employed in excess of the sanctioned 326 posts. Out of these, 47 were appointed between October 2001 and November 2002 by the Vice-Chancellor using his emergency powers.
The international centre for distance education and learning (ICDEL) hired accommodation in Panchkula for a study centre, which was not centrally located, ignoring the better offer of a fully furnished house in Sector 12-A in the heart of Chandigarh. No reasons were assigned for not considering the offer. Incidentally, the house in Panchkula hired by the university is owned by Mr Devender Kumar, a son of a former Governor, Dr Suraj Bhan. The university incurred an expenditure of Rs 1.99 lakh in furnishing the house.
The centre appointed three consultants, one of whom happened to be the wife of the Vice-Chancellor, without the mandatory approval of the executive council at a salary of Rs 20,000 per month. While one of the persons appointed was from the ministerial staff of the university, in the case of other two, nothing was on record to show that their parent institution had duly relieved them. While one consultant revised just three lessons of Hindi (BA-III), the other two together wrote lessons of music (BA-III) and five lessons of history (M.Phil) during the entire period of their appointment, which cost university Rs 7.20
lakh.
