A new online portal to keep track of action taken on issues concerning the functioning of various government departments, following audits by the Comptroller Auditor General (CAG) of India, is likely to materialise soon. This will help tide over the “huge pendency” in submission of such mandatory reports, as per procedure.
The Accountant General (Audit) has urged the Delhi government to set up a portal for real-time monitoring of action taken notes (ATNs) submitted by its departments on CAG reports tabled in the Assembly, according to Delhi Legislative Assembly officials.
A majority of 14 such reports on the functioning of the Delhi government, of which only a few have been tabled so far, are scheduled to be tabled in the Budget Session of the Delhi Assembly this week.
CAG reports, after being tabled in the Delhi Assembly, are discussed in the legislature’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC); this is followed by the departments concerned submitting action-taken reports on the CAG’s various findings in three months.
Within a month from the date of submission of these reports, the Accountant General (Audit), Delhi, vets these. At present, however, officials pointed out, there is a “huge pendency” in the submission of these mandatory ATNs by various Delhi government departments which are the subject of the reports.
Citing this, the AG (Audit) office of Delhi, earlier this year, wrote to Delhi’s Principal Secretary (Finance) exploring the possibility of setting up an online monitoring system, on the lines of the Audit Para Monitoring System (APMS), to help ensure timely submission and efficient monitoring of ATNs.
The web-based APMS was introduced by the Controller General of Accounts for effective monitoring of submission of action taken notes on CAG audit paragraphs, action taken reports on Public Accounts Committee observations, and explanatory notes on excess expenditure.
According to officials, the Accountant General (Audit) recently met Delhi Assembly Speaker Vijender Gupta seeking a push for the development of a web portal for the submission of ATNs on CAG reports.
“At present, there is a huge pendency in the submission of action taken notes by various departments of the Delhi government. The Directorate of Audit, from time to time, manually seeks information about the action taken notes from the office of Accountant General (Audit),” the AG (Audit) office said in a letter to the Delhi Assembly Secretariat.
This, the AG (Audit) noted in a written communication earlier this week, is a time and manpower-intensive exercise. The APMS – which was upgraded last year — has streamlined the whole process by eliminating unnecessary delays and has encouraged a paperless culture in line with the “Digital India” programme.
Apart from minimising the task of scanning bulky notes, this portal also ensures real-time monitoring and transmission of material. The National Informatics Centre (NIC) has developed the system for the Union government, that could be tweaked to suit the Delhi government’s requirements, the AG office has suggested, officials added.