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Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India Girish Chandra Murmu on Tuesday said they have proposed to make information technology (IT) proficiency a priority in eligibility criteria for recruitment of audit and account officials.
“We have already proposed to the government. Some exercise is going on, for a change in recruitment rules, so that we can prioritise IT proficiency in the recruitment eligibility. So I’m taking up with the DoPT and the UPSC to approve this proposal. I cannot make it compulsory for the existing staff right now. But the future-ready capacity will be there,” Murmu replied when asked whether the CAG staff have the skill sets required to audit technologies like artificial intelligence (AI).
Presently, the CAG has a strength of 41,000 employees. On day two of the two-day meeting of the Supreme Audit Institutions-20 (SAI20) Engagement Group Summit, Murmu said, “The Indian Audit and Account Service comes through the UPSC. UPSC’s characteristics have changed over the last three decades. More than half of our people are engineers. Well, now almost 80 to 90 per cent are professionals and engineers. So it is easy to adopt that. We have very readily trained people at the highest level.”
“For the infrastructure, we are trying to upgrade. We have a wide network ourselves, and we have offices throughout the country. We are upgrading the infrastructure. We have a specific IT cell and Chief Technological Officer. So with the technological experts, we are constantly monitoring. Because of our independence in this kind of decision, we will be quick enough to decide,” Murmu added.
Whatever IT system the government has adopted, his office is auditing that directly, the CAG said, citing the example of the GSTN. “How efficiently is it working, and what is the shortfall there? Every year we find out, and we tell them. So, wherever people have adopted certain technology, we are doing it,” said Murmu, the Chair of the Supreme Audit Institutions-20 (SAI20) Engagement Group.
Earlier in the day, Murmu addressed the concluding session of the SAI20 Summit and highlighted that collectively, SAIs had chartered a path to heighten efficiency, accountability and transparency in the optimised maturing of the new-age areas of the Blue Economy and AI.
Murmu said that during the Summit, a SAI20 Communique was adopted unanimously. Stating that the SAI20 is an engagement group under the Sherpa Track of the G20, he said this should be recognised as an institutional group.
“Now SAI 20 is an Engagement Group under the Sherpa Track [of the G20]. But Supreme Audit Institutions are functioning at arm’s length. They are a watchdog. They are independent of government. So, we thought that it is appropriate to suggest that this also will become an independent track under the G20…instead of an engagement group, this should become an institutional group like finance track group,” Murmu said, adding that all those who were present in the meeting have supported this idea.
The SAI20 Summit saw a participation of about 85 national and international delegates from G20 member SAIs, including Australia, Brazil, Korea, Indonesia, India, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye.
On the sidelines of the Summit, the CAG of India signed MoUs for strengthening cooperation and knowledge sharing with SAIs of Indonesia, Turkiye and the Republic of Korea. The Summit discussed two priority areas– Blue Economy and Responsible AI.
