Audit as Reform Instrument: VP Radhakrishnan

New Delhi, Nov 16 (PTI) Vice President CP Radhakrishnan on Sunday said audit is no longer a retrospective exercise but a forward-looking instrument of reform, foresight, and innovation.

Addressing a gathering here after inaugurating CAG's Audit Diwas, the Vice President commended the institution's significant strides in transforming audit processes to act as a facilitator of good governance and strengthen executive accountability.

He also complimented the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) on the recent initiatives in capacity building through institutional collaboration with eminent academic and professional bodies like IITs and IIMs.

Radhakrishnan expressed confidence in the CAG's role as a trusted partner in the government's pursuit of holistic development across the economic, social, technological, environmental, and institutional spheres, heralding the nation's progress toward Viksit Bharat 2047.

Audit Diwas marks the onset of the 166th year of the establishment of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India and celebrates its role in promoting transparency, accountability and good governance in the management of public resources.

"The CAG is the guardian of the public purse, listens to facts, figures, and evidence presented in accounting statements. By upholding fairness and truth through auditing public accounts, you are the moral wealth of Bharat," the Vice President said.

Being a constitutional authority that serves as the common thread across India's fiscal federal structure and public finance system, it provides essential feedback on governance, public trust, and accountability, he noted.

Radhakrishnan extolled the achievements of the CAG in the international auditing arena as Chair of the Asian Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (ASOSAI) and multiple committees of the International Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI), acknowledging the contributions of the Supreme Audit Institution of India in setting global benchmarks for ethical, transparent, and technology-enabled auditing.

In his address, the CAG of India K Sanjay Murthy, reaffirmed the institution's commitment to strengthening public accountability through continuous reform, technological innovation, and knowledge sharing.

He outlined four foundational pillars guiding the institution's ongoing transformation: stakeholder engagement, digital transformation, alignment with Viksit Bharat 2047 and capacity building.

"We are acutely conscious of our key role as an enabler of good governance in the nation's journey towards Viksit Bharat by 2047. Towards this end, the Department in 2023 has, after immense deliberations within, come out with a Strategic Plan till 2030, which focuses on 10 key areas towards which we have realigned our organisation's priorities so that we can play the role of a key enabler of the National Mission for a Viksit Bharat at 2047," Murthy said.

Under digital transformation, he highlighted a major shift towards remote and hybrid audits, with mandatory desk reviews of auditee databases before fieldwork to identify outliers and ensure focused audits.

He also announced the launch of the CAG-Connect Portal, a seamless digital platform linking nearly 10 lakh auditee entities with audit offices in real time.

Murthy also spoke about the development of the CAG-LLM, an indigenously built large language model aimed at leveraging institutional knowledge and enabling AI-driven audit analytics.