Indian Council for Child Welfare rife with fiscal inefficiency: Audit

Perusing the records of Indian Council for Child Welfare, Chandigarh, from 2021 and 2022, the principal director of audit, Chandigarh, has flagged several gross irregularities in its functioning.
Not only did the council lose ₹93 lakh by not obtaining income tax exemption certificate, it also shot past its budget by ₹64 lakh in the two financial years due to improper budget estimates, the audit report has pointed out.
Indian Council for Child Welfare (ICCW) functions under the department of social welfare, women and child development and is affiliated with ICCW, New Delhi, and National Bal Bhawan, New Delhi. Chandigarh has two ICCW organisations – Bal Bhawan in Sector 23 and Rehabilitation Centre for Special Children (RCSC) in Sector 38.
The council’s main objective is to ensure children’s basic human rights to survive, to develop mentally and socially, and to develop to their full potential. It also works to prevent neglect, abuse and exploitation of children, apart from encouraging, endorsing or carrying out any initiative to improve the quality of life of families and communities for children.
The audit report detailed how despite being a registered society and being entitled to tax exemption, the council did not obtain the income tax exemption certificate under Section 12-A of IT Act, 1961, for the years 2022-23 to 2026-27. Due to this, the council suffered a loss of ₹93 lakh on account of TDS deductions.
Further, the council received grant-in-aid of ₹3.44 crore for 2021-22 and 2022-23, but incurred excess expenditure of ₹64 lakh, reflecting poor fiscal planning.
In March 2023, the report said, the council made spent ₹1 crore, even as Rule 62 (3) of General Financial Rules, 2017, provides that rush of expenditure, particularly in closing month of financial year, is regarded as a breach of financial propriety and should be avoided.
Cooked food not provided to children at creches
The report found that following the Covid-19 outbreak in March 2020, the provision of cooked food for children availing creche facility was discontinued. Ever since, no alternative arrangement has been made. Due to this, children were deprived of intended benefit of the scheme that could have led to extra burden on their parents, who work in the unorganised sector.
Irregular retention of ₹59 lakh
The report said the council had received plan and non plan grants of ₹59 lakh for purchase of equipment and other recurring expenditure during 2003-04 to 2020-21 from government of India under various schemes run by ICCW and parked these funds in its bank accounts. However, the funds were neither utilised nor refunded to the government. Further, the interest earned on these parked funds were not deposited in the Consolidated Fun of India.
RK Garg, who procured the report under the RTI Act, said institutions not directly controlled by the administration need to be looked into, as they sidelined rules commonly.
When contacted, UT director of social welfare Palika Arora said they were in the process of sorting out the fiscal issues and these will be streamlined soon.