15,000 objections by CAG met with silence

And the states alone are not to be blamed; the Centre too can’t boast of a very good record. The audit objections in the case of central ministries and PSUs date back to three to five years at least in most cases. In fact, reports submitted by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament in March this year relate to audit objections dating back to the 11th Lok Sabha in some cases.

As a result, the accountability that auditing by CAG seeks to enforce has taken a severe beating. The country has seen seven Prime Ministers since 1977 at the Centre and several chief ministers in the states but unanswered audit objections keep piling up.

Uttar Pradesh tops the list with 2,199 on the civil side (relating to working of government departments) going unanswered since 1983-84. Nearly 540 audit objections on state PSUs (known as commercial in CAG parlance) since 1976-77 have also not been answered by the state. UP is closely followed by Bihar which has 1,216 pending audit objections on the civil side since 1984-85. There are 284 audit objections relating to state PSUs where even preliminary discussions haven’t taken place.

Even Andhra Pradesh, considered to be the frontrunner among reformed states, has 769 pending civil audit objections and 136 commercial ones against its name. Assam has 949 and 86 audit objections and Orissa 900 and 168, pending against its government departments and PSUs, respectively.

Several CAGs in the past have called for taking up the present reports and forget what’s pending. V K Shunglu was one of them. ‘‘Not me personally but the CAG’s office has taken up this issue in the past, but now that I have retired I don’t want to comment as it would not be proper,’’ he says.

Says PAC Chairman Buta Singh: ‘‘It is true that CAG reports are tabled in Parliament and go on record but no real follow-up happens. Over the past 10 years specially, PACs have been laidback and I have seen reports which are 10 years old. I agree the PAC should meet more frequently to look at these issues as delays come in the way of addressing the problems.

‘‘But even we have our problems. Sometimes when we want to visit some sites to get more details about issues raised in these reports, we are told austerity measures of the Government do not allow us to travel. So even these clearances delay reports.’’

Speaking to The Indian Express, the present CAG, Vijayendra N Kaul, conceded there was a problem but said it didn’t concern the functioning of his department.. ‘‘We carry out these audits at the central and state levels and submit our reports to Parliament or the Assembly. After that these reports become the property of the House and we cannot direct Parliament. Our jurisdiction ends there and it is up to Parliament to take note of the findings. The delays are indeed a weak area, and as time passes, these deny the impact of the report in correcting faulty procedures.’’

Kaul pointed out that frequently ministries don’t reply to audit objections. ‘‘As far as the PSUs are concerned, they have their own auditors and we do the secondary audit. Yet often we are criticised because the PSUs say their decision-making process suffers because of interference from our auditors. My reply to this unfair criticism is that we audit transactions of the year that has passed and decisions that have already been taken. How then can we impede their decision-making process?’’ he asks.

‘‘Moreover,’’ says Kaul, ‘‘we are not the CVC or the CBI and in performing our audit function we don’t mention officers — unless something is very blatant — but restrict ourselves to transactions where government funds are used.’’