CAG puts restructuring plan on hold

The Comptroller & Auditor General of India (CAG) has put on hold a restructuring plan to convert all 12 offices of its commercial audit wing into sector-specific auditing hubs following widespread opposition from its officials.

While the current responsibility of each of these offices is to audit all central and state public sector entities that fall within a specified area, the proposal was to reshuffle the whole system by converting all offices into centres of sector specialisation such as oil, power, coal, heavy engineering, etc. The proposal also called for the closure of two branch offices, Kolkata and Hyderabad, and opening of four new offices, two each in Mumbai and Delhi, to develop sector-specific expertise.

A senior CAG official said the proposal has been put on hold as audit officials from all centres were opposed to the change. “We have decided not to close Hyderabad and Kolkata branches as per the earlier proposal,” the official said. He informed that a notification in this regard was sent to all branches on Monday.

The commercial audit wing is responsible for auditing the accounts of all Central and state public sector entities such as National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL), National Aluminium Company Ltd (NALCO), etc. Based on these audits, reports on regularity and performance are issued by the CAG to the government every year.

Though the earlier plan is on hold, the apex audit body is keen on having a modified restructuring plan that would see shifting of some workload from some offices to others as part of rationalisation of work. The apex government auditor will also stop recruitments to the offices where there are less new public sector undertakings. “The government investment is more in certain states and regions than other parts. West Bengal, for instance, is not seeing any addition in this count as compared to Maharashtra or Gujarat. We need to rationalise the workload among the existing staff to utilise their expertise better,” the official said.

All India Audit and Accounts Association, the employee organisation based in Ghaziabad, was in the forefront of the protest against the rationalisation move.