The CAG is responsible for auditing the receipts and expenditures of the government as well as the public accounts of India and each state. The role of the CAG is to ensure that public funds are utilised efficiently and effectively and that there is accountability and transparency in the financial operations of the government. The CAG is responsible for conducting performance audits, financial audits and compliance audits of various government departments and agencies. The CAG also plays an important role in ensuring that the government follows proper procedures and guidelines in awarding contracts, making purchases and payments, and managing public assets. In summary, the CAG is an important institution in India that plays a key role in promoting transparency and accountability in the financial operations of the government and ensuring that public funds are utilised responsibly and efficiently.
The CAG submits its audit reports to the President of India, who then presents them to Parliament for discussion and action. One such report about the UT of Jammu and Kashmir has been submitted to Parliament. Eight bodies of the UT have failed to submit accounts for years together despite getting huge funds from the government, and this amounts to serious financial irregularities. On the list are two universities, SKUAST-K and SKUAST-J, that have not submitted their accounts for years together. Other defaulters are the Jammu & Kashmir Housing Board, the J&K Khadi and Village Industries Board, the J&K Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board, the J&K State Legal Services Authority (SLSA), the Compensatory Afforestation Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA), and the JK Employee Provident Funds Organisation. The UT government is bound to furnish to auditors by the end of July every year a statement of such bodies and authorities to which grants and/or loans aggregating Rs 10 lakh or more were paid during the preceding year, but it has failed repeatedly. The CAG also stated that neither Indian Government Accounting Standard-2 nor Indian Government Accounting Standard-3 is being followed in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. All these are serious violations that should not have happened in the first place.
CAG audits are not just reports; they help identify areas for improvement where the administration can improve its financial management and operational efficiency. These reports enhance accountability within the administration by providing an independent assessment of its financial management practices and can help prevent fraud and corruption. Reports also ensure compliance with regulations following relevant laws, rules, and regulations. And most importantly, these reports facilitate decision-making by providing valuable information to decision-makers within the administration. Given all these benefits, if the UT administration is still not able to make these autonomous bodies submit their accounts on time to CAG, the matter needs to be investigated at the highest level. It is not a question of one year or two years but more than a decade since these bodies have stopped submitting their accounts. With Jammu and Kashmir no longer a fiefdom of a few politicians and every effort being made by the administration to bring transparency, why are these eight autonomous bodies still following the old malpractices? Every section of CAG defines what is to be done and under which section, but deliberately ignoring all these sections amounts to a criminal offence. It is also surprising why the administration failed to notice these deliberate acts of omission, as these bodies are getting hundreds of crores’ worth of budgetary finances without any audit. Some of officials of these bodies are already in the ACB net. This is an opportunity for the administration to set an example; those officials who were at the helm of affairs for these bodies must be identified and face departmental action under the set laws. Immediate redressal of this matter is the need of the hour, after all, it is a question of transparency.
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