The Hindu Business Line : ICAI urges States to go for external auditing

IN an era when many aspire to have public spending purely a transparent exercise, the apex body of the professional accountants, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) has a task on hand — to convince all State Governments to engage external auditors to check their accounts, a move that may impart greater accountability for the State's spending.

As a first step, the ICAI has succeeded in convincing the Delhi Municipality to have its accounts checked with the help of the external auditors recently and the Kolkata Municipality has now approached the institute to lend assistance to it in carrying out an external audit check of its accounts, according to Mr Sunil Goyal, President of ICAI.

Talking to press persons at the sidelines of the ICAI national conference on continuing professional education (CPE) here, Mr Goyal said right now the Government accounting is done on single entry basis, namely recording merely the receipts and payments of accounts without the accruals. The thinking in the Government authorities is to convert the single entry accounting into double entry accounting (of accrual basis) which would usher in greater accountability. "We started off with the Delhi Municipality coming under the Delhi administration and we have approached the Centre to prevail upon the State Governments to bring the accounts of all municipal and local bodies under external auditing. Based on this pattern, we may later on extend this practice to the different Government departments of the State administrations," Mr Goyal said, adding that the institute would be in a position to involve its various regional and State outfits of ICAI to help out the respective State Governments. The ICAI has already developed its knowhow for this.

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