A former senior Chandigarh officer received a salary of Rs 26 lakh in three years while facing additional charges. Examine

Even after taking on new responsibilities, the former top UT officer who had headed Chandigarh's Society for Promotion of Information Technology was paid and given allowances totaling Rs 26 lakh for three years. An audit covering the years 2007 to 2022, carried out by the Chandigarh Administration's local audit department, made this revelation.

These organisations, which are managed by the Chandigarh Administration, usually don't have their finances audited. But on Rupesh Kumar's orders, the society's then-director of information technology, a specific audit of pay expenditures was started. Under the direction of the Chandigarh Department of IT, the Society for Promotion of Information Technology in Chandigarh (SPIC) carries out a number of initiatives aimed at promoting the IT sector in the city.

The audit, which fell under the heading "Irregular withdrawal of funds from Capacity Building Fund – Pay and Allowance to Anil Prashar," showed that, between August 2015 and September 2018, Anil Kumar Prashar took out Rs 26,48,700 from the fund for salary payments, which was against the National e-Governance Division (NeGD)-Corporate SeMTs' guidelines.

In June 2015, Anil Prashar, the SPIC Centre Manager, was given the extra duty of supervising Head SeMT's work as per directives from the Director of Information Technology. Nevertheless, disparities in the pay disbursements for this extra job were discovered by the audit.

The Director of IT, Sumit Sihag, announced that Prashar's employment ended in September 2022 and that an effort was made to retrieve the previously specified sum. A committee was also established to look into the issue further.

According to the audit report, Prashar was paid a salary each month plus allowances totaling up to Rs 74,000 for the extra expense until 2018. Nonetheless, the formal sanction granted by the Secretary of IT in March 2016 made no mention of salary payments for the position of Head SeMT. The audit also brought up questions over Prashar's appointment to this new job without the Government of India's approval.

The audit also revealed cases in which SPIC personnel received compensation for days on which their attendance was not recorded as well as for taking excessive leaves of absence. It also discovered irregularities in the way leave and attendance data were kept, along with inappropriate protocols for leave rollovers.

The audit also out notable compensation increases for different roles inside the company over time and criticised the lack of transparency in the SPIC's wage disbursements.

The special audit report was received by R.K. Garg through a request for information (RTI). Garg stressed the significance of closely examining the operations of agencies such as SPIC, which are funded by the government but frequently fall beyond the purview of routine audits.