If you thought taxpayer money was flowing only into dull and drab sectors such as coal, mining among others, think again. The Indian Council of Cultural Relations (ICCR) spent an “unauthorised” Rs 8.15 crore on sending 34 delegations to 70 countries during 2009-10 to 2011-12. 

A report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) on autonomous bodies, tabled in Parliament on Tuesday, found that that in several cases, the ICCR had split the estimated expenditure to avoid obtaining requisite approvals. As per the delegation of financial powers of the council, expenditure beyond Rs 15 lakh requires approval of its president.

However, the ICCR followed a practice of “splitting expenditure to avoid obtaining approval of the president, ICCR, during approval of budget estimates”, the audit report found. 

For instance, two separate estimates of Rs 14.73 lakh and Rs 23.21 lakh were submitted for a tour to China in April 2012 by the 38-member theatre group led by Ratan Thiyam. Similar cases of splitting expenditure were found in the case of tours led by well-known dance, music and theatre and folk artistes, such as L Subramaniam, Ila Arun, Penaz Masani, Tanushree Shankar, Uma Sharma among others.

The CAG report also found that the council was not following Government instructions that officials should only travel by Air India. 

During 2009-12, ICCR incurred 98.32 per cent expenditure on air travel by airlines other than Air India, the report said.

It also noted that the ICCR, which is under the administrative control of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), had opened three Indian Cultural Centres and was in the process of opening another eight without the Ministry’s approval. Also, it was operating the posts of Director, ICC, in various countries without requisite sanction by the Finance Ministry.

The CAG report noted that in the absence of guidelines for appointment of external directors, the ICCR had taken ‘arbitrary’ decisions. It quoted the instance of appointment as directors of three journalists and an academic, “who were working for different private agencies and their pay was fixed as per their earning in the private sector.”

Also, the council incurred significant expenditure on procurement of services by private firms, such as SEHER, Modern Stage Service Pvt Ltd, etc., without following general financial rules. 

The ICCR was set up in 1950 to establish, revive and strengthen cultural relations with other countries.

aditi.n@thehindu.co.in

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