Kolkata: The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has rapped the cash-strapped West Bengal government for lack of responsiveness to audits, saying its inadequate control over drawal and disbursement of cash led to serious financial irregularities including suspected misappropriation of cash.

"Inspection Reports (IRs) upto June 2002, relating to 551 offices of Technical Education, Home (Jails), Relief Land and Land Reforms, Health and Family Welfare, Public Works (Construction) and Public Health Engineering departments, revealed that 4,521 paragraphs relating to 1,110 IRs remained outstanding till the end of December 2002,'' the CAG said in its report for 2001-2002.

Review of the IRs pending due to non-receipt of replies from these departments revealed that the heads of offices and heads of departments (with ranks of Principal Secretaries and Secretaries to the government) failed to discharge their due responsibilities by not replying to a large number of IRs.

This indicated their failure to initiate action in regard to the defects, omissions and irregularities pointed out in the IRs, the CAG observed.

Pointing out that 44 out of 51 departments had formed audit committees comprising Principal Secretary/Secretary of the Administrative Department and representatives of the Finance Department and Principal Accountant General, it said that audit committees in 13 of the 44 departments held 20 meetings between July 2001 and June 2002. The remaining 31 departments held no meetings.

''No information on follow-up action, if any, taken by the Finance Department to settle the IRs was available. This is also indicative of the lack of effort by the government to ensure accountability,'' the CAG added.

PTI