India’s top auditor Vinod Rai is like a recurring nightmare for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government.

In the past two years, Rai released a series of audit reports, such as on the telecoms scandal and the coal-mining scam, that upbraided the government for wasteful management or mismanagement of public resources and funds even as they brought corruption to light.

The publicity generated by the reports ― the latest released last month on a coal-mining scandal that may have led to revenue losses of $36 billion ― has provided the single most important spark in India’s nascent fight against corruption.

The government is slammed for either undervaluing the country’s resources or giving them away for free, instead of auctioning them to maximize revenue.

In the process, a longstanding nexus between politicians and corporates has been exposed, as has a shoddy method of governance that seems to enrich the elite at the expense of the state.

In the hands of the media and civil society, the audits have become the most potent weapon for them to force an overhaul in the way business is done in India.

Many Indians see Rai, whose official job title is Comptroller and Auditor-General (CAG), as a force for reform, a symbol of trust and honesty in a bureaucracy often perceived as corrupt.

“Rai has turned activist. ... An activist CAG represents a net gain for democracy,” said Swaminathan Aiyar, a leading columnist. “Along with the Supreme Court, the CAG has ensured that most natural resources will be auctioned in future. That is a huge gain in fairness.”

But for all the accolades heaped on him as an agent of change, Rai is no rabble-rousing crusader. The shy, silver-haired 64-year-old with a ready smile does not give interviews and rarely appears in public.

From his fifth-floor office in central Delhi, Rai, who is supported by a nearly 44,000-strong staff, carries out what he calls “performance audits” to ensure that the government is accountable to the people.

“We can no longer continue to deceive ourselves that it is the duty of the government of the day to fight corruption,” he said in a speech last year.

It is up to the people to ensure that the law is implemented, he added.

Corruption in India may be no worse than it was in the preceding decades. What has changed, however, is the public’s perception that it is more rampant now.

The close scrutiny came about because of an unprecedented civil society campaign that brought millions of ordinary Indians into the streets last year as well as the media spotlight on the massive scandals uncovered by Rai’s audits.

The first of the CAG’s damning reports came in 2010, which exposed a scandal involving the sale of 2G mobile phone licenses in 2008 to favored companies at a cheap price, which cost the state billions of dollars in lost revenue. Then Communications Minister A. Raja, two bureaucrats and several top telecoms executives were arrested last year. Their trial is ongoing.

Subsequent reports highlighted irregularities or corruption in the hosting of the 2010 Commonwealth Games, the power sector and over land allocation. The latest one details a multibillion-dollar scandal in the allocation of coal-mining licenses to big corporates, often with links to politicians.

Despite having many admirers, Rai is not without critics.

Some experts have quibbled about his methodology for calculating presumptive gains and losses. Government ministers trashed his figures repeatedly.

Not surprisingly, too, many ministers have criticized the CAG for overstepping his mandate.

But most Indians believe Rai is doing a good job of exposing policy gaps and ensuring accountability, transparency and good governance. “His job is to show a mirror to the government which he is doing,” said T.N. Chaturvedi, one of Rai’s predecessors.

By Krittivas Mukherjee

(The Straits Times)