CAG hits at I

New Delhi, May 20: The entire amount of money allocated for important departments of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting went unutilised between 2003-06, a fact for which the CAG has severely indicted the Ministry.

The most glaring non-utilisation of allocations took place in the case of the Central Monitoring Service (CMS).

The CMS brings out weekly reports on anti-India programmes of Pakistan's Radio and TV networks on the Kashmir issue and sends them to selected officers, different agencies, ministries and departments to keep them abreast of latest developments.

It monitors news and news based programmes of other foreign radio and TV networks and also Indian channels.

Besides, content violations of programme advertisement code are also looked into by the CMS.

The CAG in its latest report tabled in Parliament expressed surprise over the fact that the entire budget provisions made for all these importnat activities remained unutilised between 2003-06.

The Ministry also failed to make use of the money allocated for construction of the Phase 11 building of the National Film Archives of India, which is entrusted with the task of acquiring and preserving the national cinema, the best of the world cinems, film classification, documentation and research.

Similarly the allocations for the construction of National Press Centre and mini media centres remained largely unutilised during 2003-06.

The Ministry also failed to utilise the entire amount allocated for the building and housing project of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication.

''Large unspent provisions under the grant, reflected poor budgeting by the Ministry,'' the CAG report said.

Moreover, the CAG, said contrary to the provisions of Rule 56(2) of the General Finanacial Rules, the Ministry surrendered unspent provisions towards the end of the financial years 2003-06.

UNI