Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal on Tuesday gave final shape to contours of third party external audit on assessment of money spent by 13047 Panchayats on various development works of villages.
With this, Punjab would be the first State in the country that would conduct the third party financial and performance audit of village works. Sukhbir, accompanied by Revenue Minister Bikram Singh Majithia, Rural Development and Panchayats Minister Surjit Singh Rakhra, said that Punjab Government has already finalised a plan to revamp the civic infrastructure of all villages in three phases for which over Rs 24000 crores of funds have been set aside.
“Main focus is that money set aside for development works in the villages should be fruitfully and properly utilised for allocated projects,” he said. He added, “In a major step towards transparency and accountability in the Rural Development Department, it has been decided that total Punjab may be divided into five zones and villages located in those zones, may be independently handed over to International Audit companies.”
The local Funds Audit Department was asked to finalise the RFP to shortlist the companies, he added. Sukhbir said that for the first time, besides financial audit of the funds of the Panchayats, there would be performance audit of works executed by panchayats every six months. The Audit company would also engage civil engineers to verify the quality of the work executed by the Panchayats.
Asking local Bodies Department to initiate the same exercise of third party audit for all local bodies and Municipal Corporations of the state, Sukhbir said that it was imperative for local bodies to go for third party audit as Punjab Government is planning to spend more than Rs 40,000 crore on the revamp of civic infrastructure of 147 towns of the State.
He asked the Secretary local Bodies to include the third party audit in the financial package of local Bodies Department.