CAG to pursue transparency in public projects despite government flak

The Comptroller & Auditor General of India may have discomfited and even seriously irritated Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's UPA government by going public with many of its findings, but the national accounts watchdog will continue to do this, according to a report.

The proposed regular CAG briefings will not however be on special audits such as its look into the 2G telecom spectrum or Commonwealth Games scandals, but focus on the UPA's flagship social sector programmes such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) and the National Rural Health Mission, which cumulatively account for over Rs80,000 crore in the annual national budget.

According to a Business Standard report, unnamed CAG officials told the paper that for the first time in its 150-year history, the national auditor is preparing public-friendly reports on social issues such as rural health, education, environment, rural asset creation, and pollution and water-based issues, among others, to spread awareness among the public.

Officials said the CAG mandate is not just book-keeping, but ''to conduct an audit, prepare a report, and tell the public at large, not only to the people's representatives in Parliament and state assemblies, but also directly about issues that matters to them (the public)'', the report says.

Late last month, Congress party general secretary Digvijaya Singh had told reporters, "I am very surprised that senior parliamentarians have not understood the role of the CAG. Its role is that of an auditor. The CAG report is not a report on corruption. It is not an investigative agency but a book-keeping agency."

This was in reference to the CAG draft report saying the government favoured Reliance Industries Ltd on the Krishna-Godavari gas contract to the detriment of the exchequer.