New Delhi, February 8, 2013- Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) Vinod Rai on Thursday rebutted criticism that the official auditor was exceeding its mandate.
In a lecture at the Harvard Kennedy School, he said, “Since the Indian democracy is maturing and the urban middle class is becoming more involved in affairs of citizens, we continue to tread the new path in the belief that the final stakeholder is the public at large”. Rai, whose reports on various scams have raised the hackles of those in the government, said the CAG would “endeavour to uncover instances of crony capitalism and counsel the government to support enterprises and not entrepreneurs”.
“We may not be able to wipe out corruption, but our endeavour is to uncover instances of crony capitalism. The government should be seen to support enterprise per se and not particular entrepreneurs,” he said. Referring to the criticism sparked by CAG reports on the telecom and coal scams, among others, Rai said the role of a public auditor cannot be confined to merely placing its report in Parliament.
“Should we, as public auditors, limit our role to placing reports in Parliament or go beyond that and seek to sensitise public opinion on our audit observations, especially so in social sector audits such as rural health, primary education, water pollution, environment, drinking water etc?”
Maintaining that the auditing of government and public entities has a positive impact on trust in society, Rai added: “It focuses the minds of the custodians of the public purse to use resources effectively.”
