Civil society, India Inc to be CAG's guiding lights

After the government involved the civil society while framing the important Lok Pal Bill, it is the turn of the national auditor to listen to the society at large and companies on how to go about its job.

The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has set up a 15-member advisory board which will have civil society representatives such as Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Shabana Azmi and Sunita Narain to suggest how it can improve its functioning.

The move comes amid criticism of some of its recent findings as well as the leak of various reports before they could be tabled in Parliament.

The board, whose aim is to bring transparency in CAG’s functioning, will comprise the representatives of India Inc as well. They will include Infosys Chairman K V Kamath and JP Morgan India CEO Kalpana Morparia.

The main function of the board will be to advise CAG on audit matters and suggest improvements. This will, however, be done within the framework of the Constitution and the statutory mandate of CAG.

The other members of the board are former Delhi chief secretary Shailaja Chandra, public finance consultant T Sethumadhavan and Arghyam Chairperson Rohini Nilekani. The board will not have any bureaucrat.

However, auditing will be done by CAG only, and the board will just advise it on areas that need to be looked at and how it should go about it, says a CAG official.

While nine members of the board are eminent personalities, five are deputy CAGs (ex-officio members). The board is chaired by the Controller and Auditor General himself.

The term of the members is two years. They will be eligible for another two-year stint. The board will meet on August 17 in New Delhi.

CAG has recently taken a number of steps to bring transparency in functioning and prevent leaks of reports.

It has decided to issue different versions of its draft reports — which are given for feedback before the final version is prepared — to ministries and public sector companies so that the source of leak can be established.

CAG has been drawing flak over some of its recent findings. Its recent draft report on Reliance’s KG-D6 gas fields was criticised by some government officials.