Norms flouted for PF largesse

COIMBATORE: Brazenly violating Central government rules and ignoring objections from the Principal Accountant General (Civil Audit) of Tamil Nadu, authorities at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras showered scores of its retiring employees with financial largesse, causing a conservative loss of Rs 5.47 crore. Besides, a CAG draft audit has found that the in­stitution is incurring an additional monthly financial burden of Rs 11.44 lakh as a result of allowing its staff, who were nearing retirement, to ille­gally switch over from the Contributory Provident Fund cum Gratuity Scheme (CPFG) to the more lucrative Gener­al Provident Fund cum Family Pension Scheme (GPF).What’s worse, the institute has been stonewalling probi­ng queries from the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development regarding irreg­ularities detected by the CAG. It has also not bothered to he­ed the ministry’s advice and reverse its decision of allowing employees to switch to the pension scheme illegally.Although the wrongful sw­itchovers in PF sche­me beg­an in the early ’90s, they scaled up duri­ng the pa­s­t decade under the watch of IIT-M’s longest-serving Director, Professor M S Ananth (currently resigned).Docum­ents from multiple governm­ent agenci­es, sourced and provided to Express by whistleblowers, both within and outside the IIT system, und­er the Right To Information Act have rev­ealed that IIT-M conveniently overlooked directives from the IIT Council, the supreme governing body, to halt the largesse. The Deputy Accountant General in Chennai, in a communication to the Union HRD Ministry on March 11, 2010, described  the problem.Dissecting the financial irregularities, he said: “The Director, IIT Madras, defied the instructions of the GOI in allowing switch over to pension scheme by his employees in a unique manner. He allowed his staff members to continue under the CPFG scheme till their retirement. At the time of their retirement, the retiring employee submits a request (without mentioning the date) to the Director seeking permission for switching over from CPFG to pension scheme. Based on his request, his (the employee’s) CPFG Account would be closed and a new GPF Account would be assigned to him and consequently his terminal benefits would be allowed by the Director with the specific approval of switchover to pension scheme.” By allowing the above irregular switchover to 73 employees, “the Director, IIT-M, had made a financial burden of Rs 5.47 crore to the Government of India.” C u r i - o u s l y these 73 r e t i r i n g employees were permitted to switchover to the pension scheme between April 1, 2004 and November 30, 2009 “though the Government of India and the Board of Governors of the Institute had repeatedly rejected the proposals of the IIT-M for such switchovers from the staff.” Pointing out that the audit had showed that as of November 2009 there were 234 staff members still continuing under the CPFG scheme and would retire over the next 25 years, the Deputy Accountant General said that if the present switchovers are allowed “the Government of India would (be) liable to pay huge amount towards commuted value of pension and monthly pension.” Yet, IIT-M continued to allow switchovers to the pension scheme.