-The Times of India NEW DELHI: In a report on Union government accounts tabled in Parliament last week, the comptroller and auditor general (CAG) has raised serious questions on the government's claim of its expenditure, saying the "integrity of the data provided to audit on Plan expenditure was doubtful". There is huge variation in Plan expenditure as per data maintained by different wings of the government. According to the finance accounts, the...

-The Economic Times   A government-appointed committee has recommended a complete overhaul of government accounting norms with a view to enforcing transparency and better monitoring of public spending.  In its report submitted to finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, the C R Sundaramurti Committee has suggested rationalisation and reorganisation of the existing account classification of list of major and minor heads of accounts (LMMHA) of centre and states."  The proposed accounting classification structure will provide a...

-The Hindu   The government on Tuesday extended the terms of reference of the Nilekani task force on direct transfer of subsidies to include an Aadhaar-enabled unified payment infrastructure. Set up by the Union Finance Ministry under the chairmanship of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) chief Nandan Nilekani in February, the task force was asked to recommend and implement a solution for direct transfer of subsidies on kerosene, LPG and fertiliser to...

While the government is grappling with a huge fiscal deficit and hence large borrowings to fund key social sector schemes, staggering sums of up to Rs 1 lakh crore in a year out of the money allocated to various ministries remained unspent between 2005-06 and 2007-08. Unspent provisions of Rs 100 crore each or more alone totalled Rs 59,000 crore in these years, according to the Comptroller and Auditor General....