Finance minister Palanivel Thiaga Rajan flags financial code violations by Raj Bhavan

CHENNAI: Finance minister Palanivel Thiaga Rajan on Monday alleged that the Raj Bhavan and the governor's office had indulged in financial code violations and obtained clearances for expenditure from the previous AIADMK government.
He was intervening in a debate on the government resolution urging President Droupadi Murmu and the Union government to prescribe a specific time limit to the governors to give assent to bills. The governors across the country are entitled to get annual "discretionary grant" from the state governments as per the financial code of 1937. "In Tamil Nadu, the grant was 8 lakh per year from 2011-12 to 2015-16. The grant, however, was reduced to 5.4 lakh in 2016-17 and 1.6 lakh in 2018-19. But it was hiked to 50 lakh in 2018-19 revised budgetary estimates. Thereafter, it was increased to 5 crore," the finance minister said.
As per the financial code, the discretionary grants by the governor are petty grants and charitable donations to institutions of a public or a quasi-public character and individuals that deserve assistance from public funds. Karnataka, Kerala and West Bengal governments extend 25 lakh each towards discretionary grants.
"There was no problem when the grant stood at 1 lakh, 5 lakh and 8 lakh. However, the code was violated when the sanction was enhanced to 5 crore," Thiaga Rajan said. Seeking to withdraw his previous statement that 2 crore was allotted to Akshaya Patra, the NGO that served breakfast to Greater Chennai Corporation-run schools, the minister alleged that the amount was transferred to an account, "governor household" and certain amount was transferred to Akshaya Patra and certain amount to "another place".
Ever since the discretionary grant was raised to a large sum, Raj Bhavan has shown expenditure of 18.4 crore under the head. "Of this, 11.3 crore was transferred to their account and the government and the computer do not know the details of what it was spent on. I would call this a violation of the rules," Thiaga Rajan said. While the file noting of the finance secretary of the day suggested that the discretionary grant sanctioned was towards petty grants and charitable donations to establishments of a public or quasi-public character, the minister said the sum of 1 crore and 2 crore cannot be called "petty grant".
Thiaga Rajan said the state government had received bills from Raj Bhavan under the discretionary grant account since September 21, which included, 5 lakh towards conducting a meeting of civil service aspirants, 30 lakh for tea party, Rs 3 lakh for cultural event in Raj Bhavan, Ooty. "All of this should never have come up in this head. There is a provision in the Financial Code that no recurring expenses shall be given. Despite that, 3 lakh/3.5 lakh payment has been made to some people in the form of 58,000 monthly pay for six months. Similarly, a one-time bonus of 18 lakh and 14 lakh has been given to all employees without knowing who is getting what salary," the finance minister said.
Accusing that several expenses were made violating the provisions of the financial code, and funds were provided by the previous government, Thiaga Rajan sought to affirm the House that the government would take immediate action to plug the violations and rule that "only what is in the code can be spent in future" would be enforced immediately.