BU Finance Committee flouts KSU Act

BANGALORE: In what may be a grave violation of the Karnataka State Universities (KSU) Act, 2000, the Finance Committee in Bangalore University has not met in the last eight months, leading to severe discrepancies in the internal audits of the university. Section 32 of Chapter IV of the Act clearly states that ‘the Finance Committee shall meet at least once in three months’. However, thanks to the absence of a uniform calendar of events for the Finance Committee, the University’s irregular internal audits have become a target of the government-sponsored University Audit.For instance, the members of Academic Council that met on September 28 last year pontificated at several discrepancies in the annual audit report for year 2008-09. “The opening balance and the closing balance do not tally, while tax deducted at source (TDS) has not been done in respect of outsourced agencies,” were the observations of the members. The then Finance Officer (FO) S A Razvi even acknowledged the discrepancies. Such discrepancies are said to be the result of the Finance Committee not meeting as per the prescribed frequency. “Not having a uniform schedule has become a routine. The Committee is supposed to conduct a general scrutiny of accounts of the university, review the yearly audit reports and make recommendations. When the Committee does not meet at all, the output will be filled with mistakes. We are answerable to the University Auditors,” said Prof N Rangaswamy, in-charge FO. The Finance Committee meetings are important as the annual financial accounts, as well as the budget, are approved here.  “The accounts are forwarded to the Syndicate and Academic Council only after this preliminary approval. Following this, the budget and accounts are sent to the government,” said Prof Rangaswamy. The abrupt changes for the post of FO have only made matters worse. In August 2010, Wazeer Ahmed had been taken off of his post as FO. Then, the tenure of Razvi ended abruptly, putting Rangaswamy, who was in-charge Registrar (Administration) then, to occupy the post of FO. “I took over the post only four months ago. It has been decided that the FC will meet on March 16,” he added.