The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament, chaired by senior Congress leader K.C. Venugopal, questioned the Defence Ministry regarding a Comptroller and Auditor-General (CAG) report that highlighted ongoing delays in payment disbursement to junior commissioned officers.
The CAG reviewed the operations of the Principal Controller of Defence Accounts (Officers) and 46 Pay and Accounts Offices, which handled payments and allowances totaling ₹3,09,975.07 crore during the period from 2020-21 to 2022-23.
The audit determined that, on average, processing the payment takes between 68 and 80 days.
More than six lakh orders were manually rejected without any documented justification, resulting in 50,646 personnel being deprived of the Risk and Hardship Allowance because the rejected orders were not tracked.
A dedicated campaign resolved 13.48 lakh pending orders, while 5.94 lakh are still outstanding.
The procedure for processing retirement settlements was also questioned. The required Provisional Final Settlement of Accounts was frequently ignored, resulting in unexpected recoveries from personnel at the time of retirement, including an instance where ₹3.7 lakh was deducted from a soldier for an incident that had occurred six years earlier.
In relation to military hospitals, the audit reviewed 19 institutions and two medical store depots covering the period from 2017-18 to 2021-22.
Sections of a military hospital in Lansdowne collapsed in June 2022 after required audits were not conducted.
The panel questioned the Ministry about who would be held responsible for the incident and asked whether the officers who disregarded the 2014 structural audit directives had been identified.
Members also highlighted that X-ray machines were being operated at six hospitals without radiation safety licences and requested confirmation that all such equipment is properly certified.
Regarding the supply of medicines, the audited depots fulfilled only 27% to 43% of hospital requirements, forcing facilities to rely on more expensive local procurement.
They also looked for an option to assist hospitals that are unable to set up effluent treatment plants.
The Ministry stated that multiple corrective actions are in progress, including a new IT integration module and a draft note for the Cabinet Committee on Security concerning hospital modernisation.
