Public Accounts Committee(PAC) of Parliament
- October 12, 2021
- Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
- Category: DPN Topics
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Public Accounts Committee(PAC) of Parliament
Subject – Polity
Context – Centennial celebration of the creation of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament
Concept –
- The PAC is the oldest parliamentary committee in the Indian legislative affairs and has been crucial in upholding the principle of accountability as it exercises oversight of public expenditure.
- The Public Accounts Committee examines the value for money of Government projects, programmes and service delivery.
- Drawing on the work of the National Audit Office the Committee holds government officials to account for the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of public spending.
- This Committee scrutinises the value for money—the economy, efficiency and effectiveness—of public spending and generally holds the government and its civil servants to account for the delivery of public services.
- As delivery models for public services have changed, so the reach of the Committee, in following the taxpayer’s pound, has spread beyond government departments to also examine public bodies and private companies providing public services.
- Public Accounts Committee was introduced in 1921 after its first mention in the Government of India Act, 1919 also called Montford Reforms. It is existing in the Indian Constitution since then.
- PAC is one of the parliamentary committees that examine the annual audit reports of CAG which the President lays before the Parliament of India. Those three reports submitted by CAG are:
- Audit report on appropriation accounts
- Audit report on finance accounts
- Audit report on public undertakings
- The Public Accounts Committee examines public expenditure. That public expenditure is not only examined from a legal and formal point of view to discover technical irregularities but also from the point of view of the economy, prudence, wisdom, and propriety.
- The sole purpose to do this is to bring out cases of waste, loss, corruption, extravagance, inefficiency, and nugatory expenses.
- The financial committee has 22 members. All the members are taken from the Indian Parliament. Out of 22 members, 15 are elected from Lok Sabha (Lower House) and 7 members are elected from Rajya Sabha (Upper House.)
- The members of the committee are elected annually by the Parliament from amongst its members.
- The principle of Proportional Representation (PR) by means of Single Transferable Vote (STV.)
- This election method gives equal representation to all the members of the Parliament.
- Every member elected by the Parliament from both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha are a part of the committee for a year. After a year, a new election takes place and members are changed or re-elected.
What the Committee does not do
- The Committee looks at how rather than why public money has been spent and does not examine the merits of Government policy. That role is performed by the relevant Departmental Select Committee.
- The Committee does not look at the spending of individual local authorities, police forces or other local bodies. That role is performed by the relevant local auditor and/or elected scrutiny body.
- The Committee cannot assist in resolving individual cases. That is the role of constituency MPs.
- It can keep a tab on the expenses only after they are incurred. It has no power to limit expenses.
- It cannot intervene in matters of day-to-day administration.
- It is not vested with the power of disallowance of expenditures by the departments.
- Being only an executive body; it cannot issue an order. Only the Parliament can take a final decision on its findings.