Worked Solution
✓ VerifiedThe Comptroller and Auditor-General (C&AG) is the constitutional head of the audit system in India, appointed under Article 148 of the Indian Constitution. The C&AG's duties and responsibilities regarding audit of stores and inventories in government entities, as part of expenditure audit, are as follows:
Verification and Validation:
The C&AG is responsible for verifying the physical existence of stores and inventories held by government entities to ensure they correspond with recorded quantities in the accounts. The C&AG must examine the accuracy, completeness, and authenticity of stores records maintained by government departments and ensure proper documentation of all transactions.
Valuation and Accounting Treatment:
The C&AG ensures that stores and inventories are valued in accordance with government rules and applicable accounting standards (such as cost method, FIFO, or weighted average cost). The C&AG verifies that the accounting treatment of stores conforms to government accounting principles and provisions of the relevant Acts.
Safeguarding and Control:
The C&AG examines whether proper safeguards exist against loss, theft, or misappropriation of stores. This includes reviewing storage conditions, access controls, insurance arrangements, and the effectiveness of internal control systems established to protect government assets.
Transaction Examination:
The C&AG verifies all transactions relating to purchase, receipt, issue, and disposal of stores. The C&AG ensures that procurement follows prescribed procedures, quotations are called when required, and disposal is properly authorized and evidenced.
Compliance Review:
The C&AG ensures compliance with applicable rules, regulations, and government orders issued for stores management, inventory control, and asset management policies.
Detection of Irregularities:
The C&AG identifies and reports any shortages, losses, wastages, obsolescence, or irregularities in stores. The C&AG examines whether discrepancies are investigated and resolved appropriately.
Audit Reporting:
The C&AG prepares detailed audit reports highlighting deficiencies and making recommendations for improvement in stores management systems and strengthening internal controls.
Write it like this
1The skeleton
- Start with C&AG's constitutional anchor — drop 'Article 148 of the Constitution' in line 1 so the examiner sees you know the source, not just the function.
- Group duties under 3-4 labelled heads (Verification, Valuation, Compliance, Reporting) — 3-mark answers live or die by scannable structure; prose paragraphs bleed marks.
- Use action verbs tied to the C&AG specifically — 'examines', 'verifies', 'reports', 'ensures' — because the question asks about duties entrusted to C&AG, not general audit procedures.
- Mention physical verification + records match as one head — this is the core of stores audit and examiners look for it explicitly; skipping it is the easiest way to lose a mark.
- Close with Audit Reporting — always end with the reporting duty; it signals you understand audit culminates in accountability, which is the whole point of C&AG's existence.
2Examiner-rewarded phrases
3Common trap
Most students list general audit steps (like 'check internal controls') without anchoring each point to C&AG's specific constitutional/statutory duty — you'll lose marks because the question is asking *who is responsible and for what*, not just *what good audit looks like*. Also, don't write this as a long paragraph; 3 marks means 3 distinct, labelled points.