The Hindu Business Line : Panel pulls up Commerce Ministry over action taken on MMTC gold imports

THE Committee on Public Undertakings (COPU) has pulled up the Ministry of Commerce by expressing its dissatisfaction over the reply of the Government on its earlier recommendation pertaining to missing documents on import of gold by the super star trading house, MMTC Ltd.

In its action taken report on MMTC Ltd— Trade in Gold (Import of Gold by MMTC), tabled in Parliament on Monday by its Chairman, Mr Rupchand Pal, the COPU recalled that in its original report it had desired the Government to imitate appropriate action to fix responsibility on the senior-most officer concerned and also set off remedial measures to avoid recurrence of such unfortunate incidents in the future.

But the Committee found that the action-taken response of the Ministry does not reflect any serious efforts on its part in fixing the responsibility. "Instead the Ministry has simply washed away its hands by stating that movement registers for relevant periods were not available with the office of the Joint Secretary and in the Export Promotion (Gem and Jewellery) section and two PAs posted with the concerned officers have since retired from service".

The Ministry further contends that its Manual of Office Procedure is silent about any method to help in tracing the movement of a file after a lapse of 10 years or so.

The Committee "wonders as to whether the Manual on Office Procedure was serving any purpose at all". In its opinion, the Committee said the justification that the missing file was reconstructed by getting necessary papers from MMTC, Ministry of Finance and RBI, could not absolve the Ministry of the serious lapse committed in preserving important documents and fixed the related responsibility".

It urged the Ministry to adhere to the detailed guidelines scrupulously so as to avoid recurrence of such incidents in the future.

While taking note of the findings of the CBI, the Committee recommends that the Government must direct MMTC to comply with procedures laid down for carrying out its business activities in future to avoid recurrence of procedural irregularities pointed out by the CBI which have been ascribed to systemic inadequacies.

It further recommends that complete transparency should be observed in future in matters involving selection of a party from among many competitors from whom offers are received for executing an agreement so as to reflect total fairness and transparency in the transactions.

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