The Comptroller and Auditor General of India has expressed his disappointment with the government's handling of its annual reports, saying action over them comes too late.
CAG Vijendra Nath Kaul told the Outlook Hindi weekly that his department sends some 3,000 paragraphs on objections alone to state and central governments every year in its report.
Parliament, he said, gets similar objections in 1,600 paragraphs.
'By the time they are addressed or action is taken against secretaries, one year gets passed and cases keep piling up,' Kaul remarked.
The CAG, who blamed what he called a lack of accountability in bureaucracy for delays in action on audit reports, said officials who sit over them should be punished.
'Officials who sleep on the CAG report and do not act should be punished,' he remarked.
Kaul, who regretted that the CAG had to encounter excuses whenever it enquired about the followup of its report, said he believed such action would help increase accountability in the system.
He also spoke about plans to switch the country's cash-based accounting system to the one based on approvals, saying all key departments have agreed to the proposals initial reservations by the defence and the railways ministries.
Kaul explained that the proposed approval system will require all ministerial and departmental sanctions for different transactions to be put down as accounting entries.