In its audit report of University of Delhi (DU), the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) had earlier this year assessed several financial and administrative irregularities that had raised several questions on the university’s alleged “adventurous expenditure”. The CAG document titled “Inspection report on the accounts of University of Delhi for the year 2014-16” was compiled by the Director General of Audit, Central Expenditure, and included over 20 outstanding paragraphs that highlight irregularities in appointments, university bus ferry service, income tax, land acquisition, creating unconstitutional posts etc.
On the condition of anonymity, a senior DU official, aware of the functioning of the audit, said: “Audit of the university’s transactions is a continuous process.”
The source further added: “For 2014-16 audit, CAG gave 11 inspection reports and 60 outstanding paragraphs which were struck down to eight inspection reports and 34 outstanding paragraphs after due process of explanation. I would say this is a huge fall in the number of queries raised by CAG being written off. When the audit was closed, there were only 20 or so paragraphs left outstanding. These outstanding paragraphs, too, are being worked on by the university. Earlier, in transactional audits, at times, the university used to have around 200 outstanding paragraphs.”
Quest for information regarding “adventurous expenditure” in DU motivated a law student, Neeraj (name changed) and Mohit K. Gupta, an advocate, to file an RTI with the CAG in July this year to get certified copies of the findings and recommendations of the Director General of Audit (Central Expenditure). The CAG in its reply provided stamped copies of the inspection reports for 2014-16, of which The Sunday Guardian, too, has obtained a copy. The audit of the university which spans over 16 faculties and 77 colleges comprising 1,32,435 regular students has questioned the irregular treatment of the post of registrar on deputation basis, termed purchase of iMac computers for routine work in South campus as “unauthorised expenditure” to the tune of Rs 24.95 lakh; the inspection report also revealed that the tender documents for iMac were revised to consider the bid without buyback offer from Ms/ Esteem Technologies.
The inspection report also highlighted the case of under-utilisation of the University Press which was doing printing, binding and related work for university study material to make it affordable for students. However, the CAG data shows that the press incurred continuous losses between 2009-15. Scrutiny brought further discrepancies, revealing that the university press had not paid its expenses amounting to Rs 1.30 crore with equipment worth Rs 36 lakh lying idle. Due to non-payment of expenses, the press had to outsource work for which the Faculty of Law had to incur a loss of Rs 1.40 crore. However, high sources in the University office said, “The rates at which the University Press had been functioning were too low for the business to become feasible which is why the Press has been down in the dumps.”
Further, the report highlighted that DU incurred a loss of Rs 3.52 crore by parallel running of feeder buses along with campus bus services, for which the audit found no basis of feasibility studies and financial estimates.
The audit also questioned the validity of Faculty of Commerce and Business Alumni Foundation (FCBAF) trust which was created by several university professors in 2002. A source in the Vice-Chancellor’s office said, “The University is working on the outstanding paragraphs and will continue to address any further queries raised by CAG in future.”