The process of re-organisation of the co-operative auditing will be completed by February 2013, Dr S Raveendran, Special officer, Audit Re- organisation, said.
The Primary Agricultural Co-operative Societies (PACS) have been complaining of impediments in availing of the NABARD assistance as the government is yet to comply with the provisions of the Constitutional (97th Amendment) Act, 2011, passed by the Lok Sabha. The State Government had to comply with the provisions of the Act and it had appointed Ravindran as the Special Officer, who had also been a former Co-operative Registrar. Speaking to ‘Express’, he said that all stake holders, co-operators, officials and all others concerned had been asked to submit their proposals.
“The initial steps in this direction have already been taken. But it is the co-operative congress, scheduled to be held in November this year in Thrissur, which will be discussing all the issues related to the sector including, the re-organisation of the auditing. After finalising it in the congress, the government will either issue the ordinance or pass the Bill before February, 2013, as it is mandatory,“ he said.
As per the amendment of the Constitution, the membership in a co-operative society will become a fundamental right.
The amendment also necessitates the societies to conduct independent professional audit. The urban co-operative societies have already made this mandatory as per the Central Act. There has been a proposal to make group or team auditing applicable in the societies as the issue of audit cost had become a financial burden to the Primary Agricultural Co-operatives. Asked about it, Raveendran said that such proposals would be discussed at the co-operative congress.
When pointed out that even auditors of the PACS said that the Co-operative Speed Audit Programme was an eyewash and only random auditing was held, he said that Speed Audit was necessitated by the backlog, to be cleared for years.
When pointed out that some of the co-operative auditors had raised apprehension about job loss in case of conducting speed auditing in future also, he said that the government could not have allowed to continue the backlog indefinitely taking such apprehensions into consideration.
Referring to the PACS complaints that the cost of statutory audit was unaffordable to them as they had to pay around `3 to 4 lakh per year as the audit cost, he said that such complaints were true.
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