CAG likely to devise guidelines on 3G

Comptroller and Auditor General of India Vinod Rai has stated that the CAG may devise guidelines to audit the auctions of 3G spectrum in April this year. However, there has been no request from the Centre.

Talking to journalists after delivering a talk on “Audit oversight – A boon or a bane” in the College of Defence Management (CDM) here on Thursday, Mr. Rai said the CAG had taken up the audit of 2G spectrum allocation on its own and might do the same in the case of 3G allocation. The government was in the process of taking action on the report on 2G spectrum, he said in response to a question.

Social audit

The CAG had for the first time taken up a social audit on water pollution with the help of social group Pan India and the report on it was expected to come in six months. Stating that it had already sought repeal of the 1971 Audit Act, Mr. Rai hoped that the new Act would be made in the budget session of Parliament.

The new Act would help avoid delays in audits, get information from the the concerned swiftly and enable auditing of all institutions involved in spending government funds. Auditing of public-private partnerships had already been taken up.

In his talk to senior defence officers earlier, Mr. Rai clarified that operational preparedness of the armed forces would not be insecure with CAG audit as their reports would focus on transactions that had taken place 24 months back.

Their reports on schemes like the NREGS, the NRHM, the ARWS and others had helped improvement in their delivery systems, he claimed.