PILFERAGE FROM PUBLIC SECTOR UNDERTAKINGS

PUBLIC SECTOR UNDERTAKINGS
These are a boon to many people, in many ways.
Unfit politicians are favoured by appointing them as chairman of PSUs.
These institutions are used for appointing “our men”.
Money is made by placing bogus “purchase orders”. I was told, there are companies having three offices in the same house, with different Boards and windows, because three quotations are required, for accepting a purchase order, as otherwise Audit will object !
Of course, pilferage is the most awesome trade causing loss of millions of rupees, coal and oil being in the forefront, in this category.
Once, a daring hero of an inspector in the Railway Protection Force (we call it Ration Pani Free), hid himself under a waggon in the transhipment platform at Agra railway station, where coal is transferred from broad guage to metre guage waggons. In the night, he saw trucks lining beside the coal carrying trains and people fillng the trucks with coal. When challenged by our hero, they opened fire. In the shoot out, a goonda was killed.
Instead of awarding a medal to him, the inspecotor was charged with murder by the railway authorities.
The same is the case with oil pipelines, in which holes are made for etxracting and filling trucks.
In Gujarat, potash etc. are filled in truks, parked outside the wall of the factory, producing the chemical.
In one field office in railway, I noticed  brass bearings, weighings a few kilogramas, being issued too frequently for maintenance; but we, in Audit, cannot object merely on suspicion, without proof.
In this electronic age, it is possible to make suitable software for linking all transactions and finding the actual stock at any time, which can be verified, if those entrusted with the task, are honest.
Here is a big IF
All such things are known to the authorities. Who cares ?