Comment in 150 words: The role of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India in promoting good governance. (2014, 10 Marks)
The World Bank (1992) defined good governance through public-sector management, accountability, a legal framework (rule of law) and transparency, and the UNDP (1997) added effectiveness and efficiency. The CAG, whose audit mandate flows from Article 149 and the 1971 Act across the Union, the states and publicly owned bodies, serves each of these components in a distinct way.
How audit serves each component
| Component | Audit instrument | Illustration |
|---|---|---|
| Rule of law | Compliance audit against the Appropriation Act and financial rules | The Union retained GST compensation cess in the Consolidated Fund (2017–19) instead of crediting the statutory fund |
| Accountability | Reports laid under Art. 151, examined by the PAC | Exposures on 2G, the Commonwealth Games and coal blocks |
| Transparency | Public reports; certification of net proceeds (Art. 279) | Places the base of tax devolution on an independent record |
| Efficiency and effectiveness | Performance audit of economy, efficiency and effectiveness | Dwarka Expressway costed at about Rs 250 crore/km against Rs 18 crore sanctioned (2023) |
Three contributions follow.
- Deterrence. Every transaction in the Consolidated Fund, the Contingency Fund and the Public Accounts may be scrutinised, so unauthorised or wasteful spending carries a risk of disclosure. Section 16 of the 1971 Act extends this to revenue, testing how licence fees and concessions are assessed.
- Service-delivery feedback. Performance audits reveal gaps between what schemes claim and what they deliver. Audit found many school toilets under Swachh Vidyalaya non-existent or unusable, and Ayushman Bharat claims paid for patients already recorded as dead. These findings let ministries correct implementation, not just accounts.
- Answerability. In Guillermo O’Donnell’s sense of horizontal accountability, the CAG equips the legislature to question the executive between elections.
Limits
- Post-facto only: it detects loss but cannot prevent or recover it.
- Timing and follow-up: the government controls when reports are tabled (Delhi’s excise-policy audit surfaced only in February 2025), and action-taken notes pile up.
- Mandate gaps: PPP concessionaires and local bodies, where much service delivery now sits, lie largely outside full audit.
- Declining output: the number of Union audit reports tabled fell from 53 in 2015 to 18 in 2023.
- Overreach charge: presumptive-loss estimates such as 2G’s were blamed for “policy paralysis”, which risks trading efficiency for caution.
Conclusion
As the guardian of the public purse, the CAG is the most concrete link between good-governance ideals and the ledger. Its promise, however, depends on the legislature acting on what it finds. Timely tabling and binding follow-up would turn audit from disclosure into correction.