Morung Express News
Kohima | April 3
The Special Officer (Accounts), Civil Secretariat, Nagaland appointed 570 peons (an excess of 182 peons) against the sanctioned strength of 388 peons between March 2004 and September 2005. This was stated in the Report of Comptroller and Auditor General of India for the year ended March 31, 2006, tabled in the assembly session recently.
To examine the persistent trend of appointment without sanctioned post in the Civil Secretariat, the report said, a High Powered Committee was appointed (April 2001) by the GoN. The Committee inter-alia recommended deploying 488 peons (100 peons on fixed pay) against the sanctioned strength of 388 peons. Accordingly, a Selection Committee was appointed (July 2001) and the seniormost 100 peons were selected (October 2001) out of the 182 excess peons, on fixed pay.
The report said, test check (November 2005) of the records (March 2004 to September 2005) of the Special Officer (Accounts), Civil Secretariat, Kohima revealed that the department continued to deploy 115 to 173 office peons on fixed pay against the approved posts of 100 during the period from March 2004 to September 2005 resulting in entertainment of excess peons ranging from 15 to 73 on fixed pay in contravention of the norms approved by the government.
“Thus, due to deployment of peons in excess of the recommendation of the High Powered Committee, the Government incurred an extra expenditure of Rs. 13. 41 lakh,” the report said.
The report added that the government accepted the facts (September 2006) and stated that the recommendation of the HPC was an interim measure and appointment of office peons in excess was necessitated due to the increased activities/ expansion/bifurcation and creation of new branches.
