'Government depts sit on over 2K of CAG audit findings'

India, July 24 -- The government departments and ministries are sitting on thousands of audit observations, with the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) reporting a major compliance problem about the submission of ATNs (Action Taken Notes) on CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General) reports, according to the 51st report of parliament's Public Accounts Committee. The report estimated that a staggering 1,372 CAG audit paragraphs were still pending beyond the stipulated four-month period as of October 2025. The parliamentary panel suggested, "2,491 CAG paras are pending for submission of ATNs as on date. Out of these paras, 1,119 CAG paras were added recently, and the prescribed time for submitting ATNs has not yet expired. 1372 paras are pending beyond the prescribed time limit. Out of 1372 CAG paras, 995 paras are pending for action on part of Ministries/Departments for uploading ATN and 377 paras are pending on part of Audit for uploading vetting Comments."

Besides, the report further added, "Out of 2491 CAG paras, 1913 paras are pending for action on part of Ministries/Departments for uploading ATN and 578 paras are pending on part of Audit for uploading vetting Comments." Hence, a total number of 2,491 audit paragraphs in the CAG's report were still pending for the submission of Action Taken Note (ATN) as on October 21, 2025. Out of these, 995 audit paragraphs were pending with the government departments and ministries for taking up the action, and 377 audit paragraphs were pending with the Audit Department for vetting comments. The maximum number of pending audit paragraphs was observed in the Department of Revenue of CBDT, followed by the Department of Expenditure and CBIC. According to the PAC, the delay in submission of ATNs creates problems for parliamentary supervision and compliance with corrective measures for identified deficiencies.

Furthermore, the panel also highlighted that under the current system, ministries and departments are supposed to submit the ATN on audit findings within four months of the laying of CAG's report in Parliament. The whole process is carried out using the APMS portal, with the submission of the initial draft of the ATN within the first 30 days and followed by audit vetting, reply and response. The committee reviewed the pendency of issues in five departments such as Civil Aviation, CBDT, Commerce, CBIC-Customs and Defence. It was found that there were several audit observations which were pending for years, with many of them being delayed due to lengthy communication between various ministries and audit authorities. As far as the Ministry of Civil Aviation is concerned, 16 ATNs were pending as of November 6, 2025, out of which eight ATNs were overdue for more than four months.

Some of these included audit observations which were pending from 2016 and 2021, including issues associated with the turnaround of Air India. The PAC further observed delay in action regarding audit observations in connection with the UDAN scheme and said that sometimes the response of Ministries was only for the sake of formality. CBDT, another department of the Department of Revenue, has also become an important source of pendency. It was found that hundreds of audit paragraphs relating to the period from 2013 to 2025 were under consideration. Some of the reasons for this pendency are attributed to incomplete answers, the lack of documentation and correspondence between the department and Audit Authorities.

On the other hand, there is a case of about 51 audit paragraphs of the Department of Commerce. In some of these cases, as many as 26 letters of correspondence have been exchanged, but no conclusion could be drawn from them. For CBIC-Customs, 152 unselected audit paragraphs, which have been reported from 2014 till 2025, were pending resolution as of February 2026. In this regard, the Audit attributed several pending cases among various commissionerates and repeated interactions with the ministry as the causes for the delay. The committee also drew attention to cases of misclassification of imports which could lead to reduction in duties and loss of revenue for the government.

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.