Audit Reports
Andhra Pradesh
Report of 2005 - Financial Audit on Urban Local Bodies and Panchayati Raj Institutions, Government of Andhra Pradesh
Overview
This Audit Report includes two performance reviews and seven audit paragraphs on Urban Local Bodies apart from six audit paragraphs on Panchayat Raj Institutions. It also contains observations on the structure and finances of Panchayat Raj Institutions (PRIs) and Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) and the results of supplementary audit under the scheme of Technical Guidance and Supervision.Copies of the draft review and paragraphs were forwarded to the Government and the replies received have been duly incorporated in the Report.
There was no system in place to consolidate the finances of PRIs. The Budget and Accounts formats for PRIs prescribed by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India are yet to be implemented in Mandal Parishads and Gram Panchayats.Creation of database in PRIs is under process. Though the State Government stated that 17 functions had been devolved to PRIs, the transfer was only partial without corresponding transfer of funds and functionaries. Andhra Pradesh Municipal Accounts Manual was adopted by the Government of AP and is being implemented in ULBs. Property Tax collection in ULBs showed a declining trend. Recovery of Tax and Non-tax arrears were poor in local bodies. The audit of LBs by the Director, State Audit was in huge arrears in GPs and ULBs. District Planning Committees were not constituted so far. EFC grants were misutilised/ diverted. SFC recommendations were partially implemented.Andhra Pradesh Urban Services for the Poor In order to achieve sustained reduction in poverty and vulnerability of urban areas, the State Government launched a project, namely Andhra Pradesh Urban Services for the Poor (APUSP) in April 2000, to cover 42 Class I towns. Audit scrutiny revealed several irregularities in implementation of the project such as unfruitful expenditure on water supply works, excess payments, losses, nonaccountal of funds, parking of funds in fixed deposits, etc. in the 10 test checked municipalities/Project Coordinator (PC), APUSP. Monitoring was poor both at the level of PC, APUSP and at the municipalities.
Information Technology Audit of Soukaryam - an e-Governance initiative of Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) implemented 'Soukaryam' (meaning facility), an e-Governance project to provide civic services to the citizens in a speedy and transparent manner. IT audit of the implementation of Soukaryam revealed inadequate efforts in project planning, application development, back up recovery/disaster recovery plans, absence of controls, logs and policies resulting in breach of security and integrity of data, exposing the system to possible manipulation. Inadequacy of audit trail made it difficult to identify and fix responsibility in the event of unauthorized access and subsequent manipulation of data/application. Irregularities in data were noticed during data analysis.GVMC still depends on manual procedures to a significant extent and hence was not deriving full benefits of the IT application.