New Delhi, Nov 16 (Representative) The mindset of ‘CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General of India) vs Government’ has changed and audit is today being considered as an important part of value addition, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said here on Tuesday while addressing auditors to mark the celebration of first Audit Diwas. “CAG is an institution that has grown in importance and has created a legacy with passage of time,” he said. The Prime Minister said that in olden times information was transmitted through stories. Further, history was written through stories but today in the 21st century data is information, and in the coming times our history will also be seen and understood through data. “In the future, data will dictate history,” he noted. Modi paid tributes to Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Patel and Babasaheb Ambedkar and said that these great leaders taught us how to set big goals and achieve them. In his opening remarks, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India GC Murmu said that the national auditor holds the unique position of being the only Supreme audit institution in the world which, apart from performing auditing functions for both Union and States, also performs accounting function for the state governments.
“In addition, we also directly facilitate various pensioners and state government officials in obtaining their entitlements as we maintain more than 28 lakh GPF (General Provident Fund) accounts in 20 states, authorize pensions of more than 56 lakh state government employees in 19 states and carry out Gazetted entitlement functions in 9 states,” Murmu said. He noted that CAG is developing an audit process management application which will include all audit processes, streams and activities and shall also be primary system of records for the entire chain of audit. “Similarly, we are taking action to develop a data linked information system whereby fund flow from Public Financial Management System (PFMS) to Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS) to Voucher Level Computerization (VLC) can be harnessed for audit planning so that the dictum of “Follow the Rupee” is fully implemented to give audit assurance to the stakeholders, which means “where there is government expenditure, there is audit,” Murmu said.