Report on natural asset accounts to be published shortly: CAG
The Comptroller and Auditor General of India on Friday said a report on asset accounts on details of 34 major minerals, 58 minor minerals and all fossil fuels would be published soon.
The Government Accounting Standards Advisory Board (GASAB), constituted by the CAG in 2002, prepared a concept paper on Natural Resources Accounting (NRA) envisaging short, medium and long-term goals starting from 2020.
The first goal was the preparation of asset accounts on mineral and energy resources, more importantly, non-renewable and limited resources, which would ultimately help build resilience to environmental issues such as climate change.
As envisaged in the concept paper, GASAB prepared templates for asset accounts for mineral and energy resources and tested them in three states through pilot studies.
They were then reviewed by experts from the advisory committee. Thereafter, templates were distributed to the states for the preparation of asset accounts.
To date, all 28 states and the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir have prepared asset accounts for 2020-21, the CAG said, adding that they are being verified and validated by various stakeholders, including the state governments.
“Asset accounts captured details of 34 major minerals, 58 minor minerals and all four fossil fuels. A report of the asset accounts will be published shortly and an electronic dashboard with the information will be hosted on the web,” the top auditor said in a statement.
It added that the work of compiling the asset accounts for 2021-22 is already underway. To ensure automatic collection and compilation of data by 2022-23, GASAB has also developed SOPs to guide the states.
Apart from data flow, the guidelines/SOPs also suggest recommendations for end-to-end mapping of supply and utilization of resources which will help the states to reduce the revenue payable from these resources and also prevent leakage and wastage, the CAG said.
India is a signatory to the United Nations General Assembly resolution titled, “Transforming Our World; 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” with the approval of more than 190 countries that require the preparation of natural resource accounts.
