The watchdog of India’s exchequer, Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), was seen in action on Friday with the government tabling 11 audit reports in Parliament for the first time during this regime. However, when compared to previous years, the number of Union audit reports released this year is still on the lower side.
Interestingly, CAG had released a lesser number of reports even in the previous NDA government when compared with UPA. The number of Union audit reports issued by CAG during NDA government in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004 were 23, 19, 18, 20 and 23, respectively. However, the number of reports marginally increased in UPA’s first innings. While in 2005 and 2006 the department issued 29 union audit reports each, in 2007 the number of reports came down to 26. In 2008, the number fell majorly to 12.
However, the Union audit reports reached a peak after Vinod Rai took charge. The CAG, while reporting a total of 23 Union audit reports during 2009, released 36 and 33 reports in 2010 and 2011, respectively. Similarly, in 2012, 21 and in 2013, 33 reports were issued.
As far as states and local bodies are concerned, there has been varying trends in the number of reports issued by the watchdog. In 2009, while CAG released 113 reports, in 2010 the number galloped to 119. In 2011, 76 audit reports were released. In 2012 and 2013, 80 reports each were submitted. In 2014, the audit office has released 37 reports so far.
This year the watchdog has released maximum five reports each on Kerala, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh. In 2013, Odisha (7), West Bengal (6) and Jharkhand (6) topped the number of reports released.
A cursory view of state reports issued reveals that the core subjects analysed by the agency are state revenues, state finances and social sector in recent years.
The audit office has recently become more proactively involved in keeping a tab on every paisa spent by our administrators in the name of public cause. The change has been swift from a mere audit report generator to an overseer of public money. Not surprisingly, CAG reports on mega scams beginning from the Commonwealth Games 2010 to Coalgate have provided the basis for a nuanced attack against graft which was more systemic than random.
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