CAG widens audit net to assess outcomes of govt schemes, urban mobility

New Delhi: The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India is conducting integrated audits spanning ministries to assess wider outcomes such as ease of doing business, efficacy of multi-modal logistics, academic learning, and ease of living.

Officials said these holistic reports will start being tabled in the coming months and aim to provide suggestions for improving measures to achieve broader targets. These will cover the impact of schemes from 2021-2026. The CAG is also taking a ring-fenced approach towards artificial intelligence in audit through its in-house large language models (LLM) being developed by the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.

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"Mundane and repetitive activities can be assisted by the CAG's LLM 2.0, which has three distinct streams for compliance audit, financial audit and works audit," a senior official told ET, underscoring that the role of AI will only be for guidance and not audit. Commenting on data integrity, the official said CAG is relying only on in-house models to ensure no pilferage takes place.

Separately, the CAG is also conducting an audit on the operational and financial performance of power distribution companies (DISCOMs), including taking into account customer feedback. This will result in evidence-based insights and actionable recommendations to the Union power ministry.

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"An integrated audit of seven central government schemes is underway," a senior official said, noting another similar wide-based approach is being taken to assess urban mobility across 101 cities, with a population of 5 lakh residents and above. "State capitals have been chosen for the exercise where cities don't have a population above 5 lakh," the official added.

These reports will suggest if goals such as lowering poverty and improving mobility through public transport have been achieved. Unlike earlier audits, which traditionally focused on efforts by a single ministry, these integrated assessments required multi-department consultations.

"Usually one ministry will give responses to the audit observations that are carried in the final report. This was addressed through joint meetings with officers across ministries to get collective responses," the official said. Commenting on the comprehensive audit of the power sector, a second official said this recognises the significant investments envisaged and its critical role in supporting economic growth.

According to an initial assessment by the auditor, DISCOMs data (till March 2025-end) indicated their financial stress is "primarily rooted in weaknesses in procurement, demand forecasting, metering, regulatory accounting and consumer service." The supreme audit body has also found that revenue grants have grown more than four times as compared to the increase in capital grants.

"Government support is increasingly meeting the cost of losses, debt and interest rather than investment," the official said, adding that several major central government initiatives, including the Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme (RDSS) have focused on bringing about structural and financial reforms in the distribution sector.