Dehradun, May 29 -- The Chief Minister's Office has written to departments reminding them to furnish utilisation certificates for expenditure incurred from the Chief Minister's Relief Fund during the Covid-19 pandemic. It may be pointed out here that despite repeated reminders over the past five years, several departments have failed to submit records of how the allocated budget was spent, creating difficulties in preparing final accounts of the relief fund.
It may be recalled that during the pandemic, crores of rupees were released from the relief fund to different departments for emergency measures such as transporting stranded travellers, running vaccination drives, setting up temporary hospitals and assisting vulnerable groups. However...