New Delhi: Delhi transport department has made an excess payment of Rs 5.59 lakh from the monthly user charges of data cards issued for its senior officials.
The payments were made during the period 2014 to 2015 and as many as 29 cards were issued during this period.
According to an internal audit report, the transport department procured 29 of 3G data cards from Reliance Communications in June 2014 under post-paid plan scheme with a rental of Rs 900 per month plus taxes for providing an alternative internet connectivity.
The auditors highlighted, “The department is advised to take necessary steps to stop the payment of such unused data cards, which have not be returned by the transferee officer/s still using the data cards and payment of which has been made by the department.”
In their report, they said, “It is not understood as to how the monthly rental was paid for those data cards, which were never issued to the users. The department has also not taken any steps to discontinue the service of those cards, the user of which were transferred but didn’t return the data cards to the department.”
The auditors, therefore, advised that the services of specific IMEI numbers of such data cards may be blocked from the service provider to prevent any misuse and recoveries may be calculated by the department after due verification of facts, said the auditors.
Only the exact amount be recovered from the concerned transferred officials who have been still using cards, the bill of which has been paid for by the department, the auditors added.
As per the report, the data cards were issued to the following officers: Two to the commissioner’s office, two to the special commissioner, three to the additional commissioner and joint commissioner, four to the deputy commissioners, 16 to the motor licensing officers (MLOs) and one for the DCA.
Though the officers, who did not get the cards or returned their cards or were tranferred from the department, the department continued pay a mnthly bill of Rs 5,59,709 for 29 data cards.
