• Specifically, what is it you plan to do?

We have to prioritise. If we do that, our job would be to look at a holistic picture, the macro elements of that picture and to ensure that valuable time is spent on that larger picture rather than getting into micro issues.

• How do you define the holistic picture? How is it a step away from what the CAG has been doing so far?

I’m not saying that what the CAG has been doing is not right. No, I’m only saying, prioritise. Government budgets are expanding by leaps and bounds. Which means government expenditures will increase. But the CAG staff is not expanding. We have limited staff and we have to do the audit in this limited staff. Hence the need to prioritise. We have to ensure that we get to those issues which have a larger impact on society. Maybe NRHM, NREGS. It is not worth our while going and sitting on a PSU, the sales turnover of which is Rs 400-500 crore.

Also, if audit comes up with some findings, it doesn’t mean the findings are malafide. It only means that somewhere some omissions have occurred, it’s not necessarily commissions all the time.

The PSU banks don’t have the CAG breathing down their neck but they do have the CVC. For all the noise they made, I (in my previous job) would openly tell them ‘look it’s a bogey’ and you raise that noise only for non-performance. How come the performers are doing well? Tell me, in the last 10 years, how many bank chairmen have been prosecuted for acts of omission?

... contd.