In gross violations of the norms, Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) in its report has found that the department of fertilisers is yet to receive complete receipts for subsidy payment of `50,698 crores to companies for decontrolled fertilisers. This raises questions on how much of `50,000 crores was properly spent to benefit the farmers.
In case of decontrolled fertilisers, the fertiliser department makes payment in two stages: proforma A and proforma B.
In proforma A, government pays 85 per cent of the subsidy to the company when it claims sale of fertiliser. The rest of the payment is paid when the company submit a sale verification certificate which it obtains from the state government.
As per the guidelines of August 2002, the state governments were required to furnish proforma B within 90 days on the receipt of proforma A.
In case proforma B was not submitted within 180 days from the submission of proforma A, company had to provide a bank guarantee equivalent to the money paid to it, till it submitted proforma B. This was done to prevent any fraudulent payment and the government had money with it in case the claim of the company was found to be false.
However, in June 2007 the department modified this procedure by which this 10-15 per cent payment could be paid to the companies within 30 days of submission of proforma A irrespective whether proforma B was given or not.