Jokes of the day!

Auditors claim that they are watchdogs, and not bloodhounds. But other departments usually take this claim with a pinch of salt, as they consider them having a nose better than that of a sniffer dog which could find a ‘fish’ in any financial deal.

Once an Audit party  from Accountant General's office came for annual audit of my office.In those days rooms were heated during winter months  by burning wood in the fire place.The Party took an objection about the disposal of charcoal obtained after burning of wood and made an audit para about loss to Govt. exchequer by not accounting for charcoal which definitely  had a resale value. On the last day the senior accounts officer discussed the audit paras with me so that the one's satisfactorily explained objections could be dropped.My old accountant sitting besides me offered to explain.The explanation ran like this," Sir the charcoal was again burned in 'Angithis,', the ash obtained was spread in flower beds in office campus, and the flowers grown made into a bouquet are placed in flower vase lying before you sir!" Expiation about consumption of charcoal,Ash and flowers  found favor with the officer and the audit objection was dropped!

In another  instance, an auditor who was ignored for promotion wrote: ‘Why have I not been promoted after having raised several objections, several times?’ He may have had a point, or not.   I confess I had, wherever I was posted, placated the audit party by providing them with an official vehicle for visits and keeping their palates satiated. Otherwise, I knew I would face an audit note or audit paragraph springing up from nothingness. I was with a few retired officers of the department when they started narrating stories emerging out of their memory. Quite oddly, I learnt that it was the Public Works Department that had mastered the art of dodging the audit parties. The story goes back to the 1970s. Swan river of Una district of Himachal would overflow during monsoon and cause severe soil erosion and landslide, endangering life and property. From its ancient name of Sombhadra, or Swan, it was now the Sorrow of Una. One day, the PWD forgot to shift a road-roller from the banks of the river and it rained cats and dogs that night. The road-roller was swallowed by the raging river. The audit, after calculating the depreciation, fixed the responsibility amounting to Rs 1 lakh on the poor Assistant Engineer! It turned out to be a dreaded audit paragraph and remained unsettled the following year too. The year after that, the loss was shown as the loss of a ‘roller’. It continued as roller for a few years. And then, the spellings were changed to ‘ruler’!

The Assistant Engineer concerned purchased a ruler from the market for a rupee and deposited it with the store. The paragraph was fully and finally settled.

Yet Another story: once, an Executive Engineer of the department was promoted as Superintending Engineer. Naturally, there had to be some celebration. How could the order be digested without sweets? So, he ordered the Assistant Engineer to distribute ‘rasgullas’ to all and sundry.

The Assistant Engineer transferred the order to the Junior Engineer. A hundred rasgullas would make a big hole in the pocket of the Junior Engineer. So, he devised a method and wrote in the logbook ‘purchase of 100 rassas (ropes) and 100 gullas (pegs) for measuring a highway’.  The audit party was satisfied.

_Tejinder Kamboj