President of India, Ram Nath Kovind, inaugurated the Centennial Year Celebration of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in the Central Hall of Parliament House on Saturday. PAC is one of the most powerful financial committees of the Parliament.
Speaking at the function, President Kovind said that Parliament is the embodiment of the people’s will and the Parliamentary Committees work as its extension. “It is a welcome division of labour as they allow the Houses to discuss and debate all issues while select groups of the Members of Parliament can devote more focus on select matters. The importance of the framework thus created cannot be overstated,” he said.
Vice-President of India M. Venkaiah Naidu, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, and Chairperson, Public Accounts Committee of Parliament of India, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury along with Union Ministers, Members of Parliament and presiding officers of the State legislative bodies were present in the House.
Mr. Naidu in his address called for harmonising the expenditure on freebies under welfare obligations of the governments with developmental needs and urged the Public Accounts Committee of the Parliament to examine this aspect to enable wider public discussion.
“We are all alive to the present scenario of various Governments indulging in doling out freebies for obvious reasons. While ensuring the welfare and social security of the needy people is an important obligation of the governments, it is time that there is a wider debate on harmonising the welfare and development objectives. Expenditures must be carefully balanced so that both the short-term and long-term development objectives get equal attention,” he said.
The Vice President urged the PAC to reinvent itself based on the experience of the last 100 years to more effectively ensure financial discipline in the context of the Central Government’s Budgetary expenditure increasing from a mere ₹197 crore in the first Budget to ₹35 lakh crore now, marking an increase of 17,766 times making it’s monitoring by the Committee that much more complex and challenging.
