Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Mr. Sukhbir Singh Badal today gave the final shape to contours of Third Party External Audit on audit of money spent by 13047 Panchayats on the various development works of villages. It may be mentioned that Punjab would be the first state in the country that would conduct the third party financial and performance audit of village works. Accompanied by Mr. Bikram Singh Majithia, Revenue Minister, Punjab and Mr. Surjit Singh Rakhra, Rural Development and Panchayats Minister, Mr. Badal said that Punjab Government has already finalized a plan to revamp the civic infrastructure of all the villages in three phases for which over Rs. 24000 crores of funds have been set aside. He said that his main focus was that money set aside for development works in the villages should be fruitfully and properly utilized for allocated projects. He said that in a major step towards transparency and accountability in the Rural Development department it has been decided that total Punjab may be pided 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 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.
The Deputy CM said that he does not panchayats to spend money on audit from their own accounts and said that it was imperative for finance department to bear the cost of third party audit. Asking Local Bodies department to initiate the same exercise of third party audit for all local bodies and Municipal Corporations of the state, Mr. Badal said that it was imperative for local bodies to go for third party audit as Punjab Government is planning to spend more than Rs. 40000 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.
Prominent amongst those participated in the meeting Mr. Mandeep Singh Sandhu, Principal Secretary Rural Development. Mr. DP Reddy, Secretary Finance, Mr. Ashok Kumar Gupta, Secretary Local Government, Mr. Manvesh Singh Sidhu and Mr. Ajay Kumar Mahajan both Special Principal Secretaries to Deputy CM.