Rs 82 lakh to fight drug abuse gathers dust in Chandigarh social welfare office: audit

A review of the department’s records from 2021 to 2023 revealed that ₹Rs 82 lakh from the National Action Plan for Drug Demand Reduction (NAPDDR) remained unutilised, limiting the success of the programme.

The department administers various welfare programmes and facilities for members of scheduled castes, other subordinate classes, persons with disabilities, women and children, including Nari Niketan and other government and non-governmental organisations run facilities.

Launched on August 15, 2020, by the Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, NAPDDR aims to mitigate the ill effects of drug abuse through education, counselling, detoxification and rehabilitation and training for service providers in collaboration with the Central and State Governments and NGOs.

Under this programme, financial assistance is provided to the State Governments/UT administrations. ₹82 lakh was available as on March 31, 2022. However, the Director of Social Welfare has not allocated these funds for the essential activities of the scheme, thereby undermining its objectives.

The audit also revealed that the beneficiary institutions had to recover unspent funds amounting to ₹2.95 crore which could have been allocated for other welfare programmes, thereby depriving the beneficiaries of timely welfare assistance.

The audit found that the certificates of use showed large unused amounts that should have been repaid to the Director of Social Welfare under the General Financial Regulations. The lack of clear instructions on repayment resulted in these funds remaining unused instead of being used for the welfare of children and women, indicating poor planning.

Rule 230(8) of the General Financial Rules, 2017 requires that all interest or income from grants or advances shall be immediately remitted to the Consolidated Fund of India.

Processing of pensions delayed

The Chandigarh Administration Pension for Disabled Persons Rules, 1999 provides financial assistance to persons with disability of 40% or more. The Pension to Widow and Destitute Women Rules, 1990 provides pension to disabled women aged 18 to 60 years. The Old Age Pension Rules, 1990 provides assistance to men above 65 and women above 60 years. Applications for these pensions were supposed to be processed within 30 days. However, the audit report found that while 3,617 pension applications were received in the year 2022-23, only 2,794 were processed up to March 31, 2023, leaving 823 pending.

Irregular release of ₹55 lakh grant

The audit also revealed that on March 11, 2022, the Director of Social Services sanctioned ₹55 lakh for the Chandigarh Commission for Protection of Child Rights (CCPCR).

Instead, the funds were disbursed directly to another organization, the Chandigarh Child and Women Development Corporation (CCWDC). This grant was disbursed without deduction of TDS and GST TDS, which should have been done before the funds were transferred to the CCPCR.

In addition, the director did not provide any documents proving ₹55 lakh rent debt owed by CCPCR to CCWDC.

The Commission on the Rights of the Child had only submitted usage certificates for ₹45 lakh from a previous grant as they never received the ₹55 lakh approved on March 11, 2022.

Despite the request to provide a certificate of use for the entire ₹100 lakh, including the ₹55 lakh which were sent directly to CCWDC, no certificate was requested from the society. This resulted in irregular release of ₹55 lakh. No response was received from the department regarding the results of the audit.

The audit found that ₹Under the main heading, Rs 1.5 crore has been allocated for investment in the CCWDC every year.

According to the Certificate of Occupancy and financial reports of CCWDC ₹1.82 crore was used for operating expenditure instead of capital investment (equity), which is in violation of Rule 22 of the General Financial Rules.

When asked, Palika Arora, head of the UT's social welfare department, said that they are currently working on solving the financial problems and that these will be implemented soon.

RK Garg, who procured the report under the RTI Act, said the UT administration should work out a mechanism to monitor the response to the examination objections.