The object of my amendment is to provide that Parliament should have the power to confer additional duties on the Comptroller and Auditor-General. We are creating corporations now, and we have already created the Damodar Valley Corporation. We shall, doubtless, create more such corporations in future. So far as I remember, the Damodar Valley Corporation Act, while it allows the Corporation to get its accounts audited by auditors appointed by it, also permits Government to impose any duties on the Auditor-General in that connection that it likes. I want, Sir, that this position should be maintained, particularly as the number of such corporations is going to increase. The Indian Railway Enquiry Committee have recommended the establishment of a Railway Authority for the management of the Railways. If it comes into existence, this Authority will control property worth six or seven hundred crores, and expenditure running into about two hundred crores. Since all the property under the autonomous corporations will belong to the Government, it is necessary that Parliament should have the power, should it so desire, to assure itself of the soundness of the financial position of the authorities created by it, by asking the Auditor-General to perform such duties in connection with the examination of their accounts, as it thinks proper. It may not be necessary for Parliament to do so. But it should have the power to direct the Auditor-General to examine the accounts of the corporations created by it. The State has invested, or will invest crores upon crores of rupees in these corporations; and it should not, therefore, be compelled by law to depend upon the reports submitted by auditors appointed by these corporations. Now, this does not mean any distrust of these corporations. I do not wish to cast any reflection on the honesty of the members of these corporations or the auditors appointed by them; but as a general principle, I want that the power of the Auditor-General should be capable of expansion so that Parliament may have an independent authority at its disposal in order to satisfy itself of the soundness of the management of the authorities created by it.
