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The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India has flagged "systemic deficiencies" in Maharashtra's governance, identifying Rs 891 crore in possible financial irregularities across more than 10,000 audit queries that various departments ignored despite repeated reminders over a decade. The CAG, in the report tabled in the recently concluded budget session of the state assembly, criticised the delay by departments in filing action taken notes (ATNs), stating that the state's inability to address queries in 2,408 inspection reports (IRs) undermined "executive accountability" and "legislative oversight". The CAG has raised queries over the accounts, some dating back over a decade, but the departments have left them unanswered. As many as 2,408 IRs, containing 10,340 paragraphs (queries), were pending settlement as of June 2023, reflecting a significant backlog, even as a separate local audit for 2022-23 raised 2,119 objections involving revenue implications of Rs 891.29 crore, ...
The CAG's estimate that the government has suffered revenue loss due to non-implementation of an agreement with Reliance Jio was based on a misinterpretation of a clause, and the error has been rectified now, Minister of State for Telecom Pemmasani Chandra Sekhar said on Thursday. The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), in a report last year, had said that the state-run firm BSNL failed to enforce the master service agreement (MSA) with Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd (RJIL) and did not bill for the additional technology used on BSNL's shared passive infrastructure, resulting in loss of Rs 1,757.76 crore and penal interest thereon, between May 2014 to March 2024 to the government exchequer. The minister, in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha, said BSNL has an MSA with RJIL for leasing of BSNL's tower infrastructure to install their equipment. "There is no revenue loss to BSNL and the government. The estimate of CAG was based on the misinterpretation of the clause of add-on ...
The Maharashtra government routed routine procurement of medicines and medical equipment through the state-run Haffkine institute using Advance Contingent bills, leaving 559 bills worth Rs 2,226.32 crore pending for adjustment at the end of 2024-25, CAG has said. Advance Contingent (AC) bills are a type of government bill used to draw money in advance for urgent or unforeseen expenses, when it is not practical to wait for detailed bills or vouchers. According to a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), tabled on the last day of the winter session of the state legislature on Sunday, pending AC bills accounted for 63.03 per cent of the total AC bills, in violation of Rule 282(2) of the Maharashtra Treasury Rules, which bars withdrawal of funds unless required for immediate disbursement. The report identified the Medical Education and Drugs Department as the biggest defaulter with Rs 2,212 crore of Detailed Contingent (DC) bills pending, followed by the Public Health ...
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has termed the Assam government budgetary assumptions for 2023-24 "unrealistic and overestimated," pointing out that in several cases supplementary grants were approved where expenditure of the original allotted funds was not even done. It also highlighted non-submission of Utilisation Certificates (UCs) and annual accounts of several autonomous councils and other bodies. The CAG report on state finances for 2023-24, laid in the Assembly on Saturday, said the budgetary assumptions of the state government "continued to be unrealistic and overestimated" during the fiscal year, as it incurred an expenditure of Rs 1,39,449.66 crore against grants and appropriations of Rs 1,69,966.13 crore, resulting in overall savings of Rs 30,516.47 crore. These savings stood at 17.95 per cent of total grants and appropriations made for the year. The report said that "the savings were notional, as the funds were not actually available for expenditure", since t
The CAG has asked the Centre and all the states to start using standard categories for recording government spending, to make accounting and auditing uniform across the country, latest by fiscal year 2027-28. The CAG advisory seeks to do away with the wide variation among states in the operation of expenditure heads at the disaggregated level. The matter had been engaging the attention of multiple stakeholders and was impacting inter-temporal and inter-state comparison as well as those with the Union Government, Jayant Sinha, Deputy CAG (Government Accounts) and Chairperson (GASAB) has said. The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has notified a common list of heads of expenditure at the disaggregate level, commonly referred to as 'Object Heads' of expenditure. This is being done as part of recent initiatives to strengthen public financial management in the country, Sinha said. Wide variation in the depiction of expenditure of economic nature at the disaggregate level .
Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) K Sanjay Murthy on Friday launched the website of GASAB, aimed at improving accessibility and transparency in government accounting standards. Addressing the 37th board meeting of the Government Accounting Standards Advisory Board (GASAB), he said that initiatives and the work of all the organised accounting services in GASAB reflect the commitment towards improving transparency in government accounting and the standard-setting process. Murthy stated that the standard-setting work undertaken by GASAB is an exercise entailing multiple stakeholder interaction and feedback from subject matter experts. The due process of GASAB envisages a well-laid-down process of the selection of topics and the preparation of standards through a robust and inclusive consultative process with members, stakeholders, including specialists and the public, he added. Pivoted on good governance, fiscal prudence, efficiency, and transparency in public finances, .
The Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) here on Tuesday. The MoU was signed by Ravi Agrawal, Chairman, CBDT, and AM Bajaj, Dy CAG (Commercial & CRA), in the presence of CAG K Sanjay Murthy.Both organisations will collaborate to promote academic, training, and research interaction/cooperation in capacity development and research activities in areas of mutual interest.The CAG emphasised that the signing of the MoU will significantly enhance professional cooperation and capacity-building efforts, particularly in data-driven technology, between the two Departments. This MoU will serve as a strategic framework to bridge the skills gap between the two institutions and foster mutual growth.This partnership will focus on a range of initiatives, including training workshops, joint seminars, sharing audit insights based on advanced data analytics, and the use of innovative ...
The committed expenditure on salaries, pensions, and interest payments increased by 2.49 times to Rs 15,63,649 crore in fiscal 2022-23 across all states from Rs 6,26,849 crore in 2013-14, said a CAG report on state finances. A large share of the revenue expenditure is either committed or tied up. Salaries, pensions, and interest payments on public debt and liabilities are treated as 'committed expenditure'. During the 10-year period from 2013-14 to 2022-23, revenue expenditure by the states constituted 80-87 per cent of the total expenditure and as percentage of combined GSDP, it was about 13-15 per cent. In FY 2022-23, revenue expenditure was 84.73 per cent of total expenditure and 13.85 per cent of combined GSDP, said the publication on State Finances 2022-23, the first of its kind by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. In FY 2022-23, out of the total revenue expenditure of Rs 35,95,736 crore, the committed expenditure was Rs 15,63,649 crore; Rs 3,09,625 crore on subsid
The apex government auditor CAG will launch a portal in November to provide nearly 10 lakh auditee entities with a unified digital interface to directly respond to queries, observations, and inspection reports. The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) is transitioning to a system-wide strategic shift to remote and hybrid audits to increase audit coverage, reduce time for field audit at auditee premises and improve the quality of audit outputs. This transition is anchored in risk-based planning, secure access to government platforms (such as IFMS, e-Procurement and sectoral databases like WAMIS for public works etc.) and the use of geospatial tools like PM GatiShakti to strengthen evidence and consistency across sectors, Deputy CAG K S Subramanian told reporters here. The pilot studies of remote audits in many audit domains have been concluded, and they are now being replicated across offices. Remote audits in receipts audits are advancing faster due to higher automation, .