oppn parties 'Creative' Accounting Doesn't Pay In The Long Run

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  • In Assam, a controversy erupted after a picture of UPPL leader Benjamin Basumatary, lying on a stack of Rs 500 notes circulated on social media. UPPL is an ally of the BJP
  • AAP's Jalandhar-West MP Sushil Kumar Rinku joins the BJP. He was the only AAP Lok Sabha MP
  • Supreme Court dismisses Centre's plea to review its 2023 verdict in the PMLA case
  • Close save for passengers as they remain unhurt after the wings of two planes graze at Kolkata airport. Pilots derostered and inquiry ordered by DGCA
  • Bengal BJP leader Dilip Ghosh gets notice from the EC as well as the BJP for making ugly remarks about Mamata Banerjee's parentage
  • Sadanand Vasanth Date, who faught terrorists in the 26/11 attack and was awarded the Preisent's Police medal, has been appointed the head of the NIA
  • Centre will borrow Rs 7.5L cr in the first six months of FY25, nearly 50% of the target for the full year
  • 25 stocks, including SBI, will see same day trade settlements from today in the world's fastest settlement mode in both BSE and NSE
  • Stocks recover smartly on Wednesday: Sensex rises 526 points to 72996 and Nifty 118 points to 22123
  • Tennis: Rohan Bopanna-Matthew Ebden reached the semifinals of the Miami Open
  • IPL: records tumble as SRH beat MI in a high-scoring match. SRH score 277/3 with 18 sixes and Mumbai score 246 with 20 sixes to fall short by 31 runs. Atotal of 38 sixes, highest in an IPL match were hit and both teams combined to score 523 runs, the highest aggregate in an IPL match
  • Amul will launch fresh milk in the US
  • IPL: RCB beat Punjab by 4 wickets as Kohli and Karthik shine with the bat
  • India strongly objected to German foreign office remarks over the arrest of delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, called it "biased assumptions"
Delhi Lt Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena says government cannot be run from jail, hints at President's Rule in the capital ////// In a dangerous incident, the wings of two planes grazed while taxiing on the runway at Kolkata airport, all passengers were safe but DGCA ordered an inquiry and the pilots were derostered
oppn parties
'Creative' Accounting Doesn't Pay In The Long Run

By Ashwini Agarwal
First publised on 2020-09-30 14:44:04

Two separate reports from CAG have shown the difference between how the Centre is managing its finances and accounts and how some states like West Bengal are doing so. In the first report, CAG said that the Centre has withheld certain receipts in the Consolidated Fund of India (CFI) instead of transferring them to respective accounts, thereby inflating its receipts and fudging the actual fiscal deficit figures. The Centre said that the receipts were in the CFI as they had not been reconciled. In the second report, CAG commended the West Bengal for excellent reconciliation of its receipts and expenditure accounts.

The Centre must understand that whatever the compulsions, fudging accounts to give a distortedly favourable position of the accounts and finances is the gravest form of financial irresponsibility. It results in distorted planning, unwanted complications and non-implementation of policy. It also erodes investor confidence. It gives the bureaucracy a handle with which to show a rosy picture while actually the wound keeps getting worse. What has the government achieved by doing this other than delaying, or even worsening, the inevitable? Was it waiting for some magic wand that would pour in money and it would use that to set everything right?

The economy was already slowing down before the pandemic hit to bring it to a complete standstill. Now, the position is worse than before. The government had failed (?) to reconcile GST figures to transfer much lesser amounts to the states. But the lockdown has ensured that there simply are no funds available and it has now been forced to renege on its commitment to make good the shortfall in GST and has asked the states to borrow the amount. This has resulted in the souring of the relationship between the Centre and the states. If the Centre had not fudged the accounts, it could have involved the states in jointly framing policy to tide over the situation. That would have built trust.