Governor's discretionary fund to be audited: Fin Min PTR

CHENNAI: Finance Minister Palanivel Thiaga Rajan on Wednesday said that the State government funds given to the Governor's Discretionary Fund would be audited to ensure accountability and the fund has been reduced to Rs 3 crore from Rs 5 crore.

Intervening in the debate for the demand for grants for the finance department, he said that after AIADMK whip SP Velumani raised the issue on breakfast provided to school children in the city, he went through files related to it and found some startling things.

"The Governor's secretary has written to the then Finance Secretary on the decision taken at the conference of the Governors to make the discretionary funds uniform across the states. They wanted the fund to be increased to Rs 5 crore. The Governor's secretary also sought evidence for increasing it to be sent to President. The letter seems to be in a threatening tone. It is totally unacceptable in a democratic setup," he said.

He said that until then the Governor Discretionary Fund was only Rs 1.56 lakh. He said that Governor's secretary wanted the discretionary fund to be increased to Rs 1 crore in January. "However, the then finance secretary has created a file to increase the fund to Rs 50 lakh without getting the approval of the finance minister in the file," he said.

The fund was subsequently increased to Rs 5 crore from April onwards in the next budget, he added.

Pointing out that no other states, including the BJP-ruled states increased the discretionary fund, he said that the Governor's discretionary fund has been reduced to Rs 3 crore as they spent so much in the last fiscal year. He said that the funds allocated to the Governor's discretionary fund would be audited. "To ensure the officials follow the basic finance standards, a workshop would be conducted in this regard after getting the Chief Minister's approval," he said.