Essay on Committee on Public Undertakings of India

Since, 1964, the Committee on Public Undertakings has taken the work relating to autonomous public Enterprises from the two financial committees.

The Committee’s major functions include: the examination of reports and accounts of public undertakings; examination of reports, if any, of the C&AG on the public undertakings; to examine in the context of autonomy and efficiency, if the public undertakings are being managed in accordance with sound business principles and prudent commercial practices; and to discharge other functions assigned to it by the Speaker from time to time. The Committee undertakes its studies of individual public undertaking by rotation.

Control over Finances

Parliament gets innumerable opportunities to examine and review the public administration through the institution of parliamentary debates and questions, but it does not get a chance of close and continuous examination of the detailed functioning of the executive government.

However, administration comes under close scrutiny of parliament when the budget is under discussion. This is really a critical time for the government. During the general discussion and voting on demands for grants, the members of parliament get an opportunity to discuss and criticise the working of each ministry, department or other agencies of government.

There is no matter which cannot be raised during the debate. Questions of policy economy, grievances, complaints, adequacy or inadequacy of projects, schemes and outlays can always be raised and the minister has to give satisfactory reply or be let off.

Audit Reports: As the examination of intricate government accounts and the scrutiny of the technical soundness of the financial transactions is a specialised task, in the first instance this job is commonly entrusted to an independent organisation whose reports are placed before the legislature for consideration.

This organisation is the Audit Department. “Audit, like the judiciary, the executive and the legislature, is one of the important ingredients of democracy.” Its primary purpose is to ensure that the process of spending governments funds, all cannons of official propriety have been observed, this the rules and regulations which govern expenditures are adhered to, that the expenditure has incurred by the authority which is empowered to incur it, and that it has been incurred for the purposeful which it has been appropriated by the parliament.

The Comptroller and Auditor General annually report about these aspects of government transactions to the legislature. The audit is, thus, one of the important instruments of parliamentary control over administration.