The Public Accounts Committee of Parliament questioned the absence of the Andaman and Nicobar chief secretary at its meeting on Wednesday and decided to seek an explanation.

PAC chairperson K C Venugopal said the official, who was summoned by the panel, had last night intimated that he would not be present at the meeting on Wednesday. “He asked for permission, to which I did not grant permission,” he said.

He said the panel would write to the Union Home Secretary to seek an explanation on why the official failed to attend the meeting.

The Committee discussed the CAG audit paras pertaining to the Institute of Medical Sciences at Andaman and Nicobar and the Chandigarh Welfare Board.

“The Andaman and Nicobar chief secretary was not present at the meeting and the Committee took a serious note of that. The Committee has asked the Union Home Secretary to give an explanation on why he was not present at today’s meeting,” Venugopal said.

On the deliberations of PAC, he said, “We discussed in detail about the audit paras report on the Union Territories of Andaman and Nicobar and Chandigarh.”

He claimed that there are a “lot of discrepancies” in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Institute of Medical Sciences project as construction has been underway for the last 12 years and the matter was discussed by the panel.

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