CAG seeks Parliamentary panel nod to table all-digital reports in future

NEW DELHI: The Comptroller and Auditor General has come out with its first digital report — a pilot project if successful will help the auditor prepare all its future reports in digital format that will be considered for tabling in Parliament.


“A committee of Parliamentary procedure is currently looking into the matter how digital format reports can be tabled in both the Houses of Parliament,” a source said, adding that both the LS (Lok Sabha) Speaker and RS (Rajya Sabha) chairman have written back to the CAG appreciating the move saying this will be environmentally friendly as it will save paper.

The first digital report is on the working of Inland Container Depots and container freight stations of the Indian Customs, presented to the government along with its regular report in print format, tabled in Parliament on January 9.

The digital report is in the form of a power point presentation with hyperlinks taking to previous background studies on related topics where applicable. The report on customs functioning across the country has been uploaded on its website and is very reader friendly.

Earlier, the federal auditor had written to the RS chairman and LS Speaker on its new initiative and had sought their suggestions if digital format can be considered in future as an option for tabling of the reports in Parliament.

Last year, the auditor had taken the initiative to carry out entire audit functions in digital format starting with the preparation of its report on the performance appraisal of the Goods and Services Tax.

Digital audit is an exercise where the federal auditor has made it mandatory for all government departments to provide only digital copies of documents to be audited, no paper documents will be accepted.

The auditor has already set up a Centre of Excellence in digital audit at Bengaluru for capacity building of its officials to adopt to technology and use of data analytics. The auditor is also focusing on Big Data and cloud sourcing of information from various public domain to widen the scope of its audit. Already the CAG has taken up 24 pilot projects covering almost every state where data analytics has been incorporated in its various ongoing audits of government schemes.

The auditor has also set up a big data centre at its headquarters in Delhi for the purpose of data analytics. The officers are being trained in data analytics and its use in auditing central schemes.

The federal auditor has also tied up with the Harvard Kennedy School and the IIM Bangalore besides some leading private auditing firms for the training of its officials.