The untapped goldmine-C&AG audit reports

Around Apr-Jun annually, newspapers specially Hindustan Times report sensational extracts of Govt misspending, fraud, wasteful expenditure, delay etc. They do not devote resources to this but simply borrow the existing audit reports of the C&AG.

This Dept(http://www.cag.gov.in) is devoted to setting(not actually doing) accounting rules for the Govt/semi Govt/Govt funded schemes. Also, it carries out various types of audits on these entities.

By law, the Public Accounts Committe of Parliament(comprising mainly opposition members) is supposed to critically comment & accept the audit report. But instead, these valuable reports are just passed without even reading.

As the C&AG has no implementation power, it has to rely on the goodness of the concerned ministries to initiate change as per its recomendations.

In taxation areas, these changes take 1-2 years time usually(from publication of C&AG report to the legislative amendments). Examples include expanding definition of manufacture in excise law to include any activity, giving stringent audit guidelines to evasion prone areas, electronic returns etc.