| Work Detail |
CHANDIGARH: Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) has failed to recover penalty of Rs 2 crore and short levied penalty of Rs 72.77 lakh for delays on part of vendors in supply and installation of equipment, according to the comptroller and auditor general (CAG) report tabled in Parliament on April 5. The report also highlighted the institute lacks established and approved procedures, resulting in procurement on ad hoc basis.
To assess whether the equipment were being procured as per the laid down guidelines of General Financial Rules (GFR), an audit was undertaken of the procurement of equipment covering a period from 2012 to 2017. As many as 81 out of 491 cases of procurement costing above Rs 10 lakh and 11 departments out of 49 were randomly selected.
The detailed scrutiny of records maintained by the department of radiodiagnosis and imaging revealed the down time period recorded of 11 equipment was beyond the permissible limit ranging from three days to over eight months. Accordingly, penalty of Rs 2.10 crore was leviable from suppliers, out of which only Rs 9.34 lakh had been recovered.
The report also pointed out “tampering” of record. The audit highlighted cuttings and tampering in the log books to change days initially marked as “not working” to “working”. In some cases, tampering in the timings of repair of equipment were also noticed. |
