A government raises money and presents a budget detailing how it proposes to spend that money. Parliament passes the budget, thus authorises how it can be spent. The executive spends it (or fails to spend it). The expenditure is entered in the accounts. Finally, the government is required to show that the money was spent for the purpose for which it was released.
Beyond Rs 54,282 Crore, CAG Report Finds Government's 'Savings' Rife With Red Flags
The CAG report shows that this chain can and does break at every stage. For example, take taxes that do not serve the stated purpose:
During the financial year 2024–25, the Union government collected Rs 5.29 lakh crore (13.94% of gross tax revenue) through cesses and surcharges. These revenues are not shared with the states but are framed as additional taxes raised for specific purposes: health, education, infrastructure, or some other clearly defined public need.
The CAG examined four earmarked funds and found that Rs 9,222 crore collected through cesses and surcharges had not been transferred to the specified funds.
In lay terms, we are told that a cess is being levied on us for a particular, laudable, purpose. The bulk of the money, however, is not used for the purpose it was collected for.
We pay for something and get something else that we did not ask for.
Take the case of drinking water: Across three Jal Jeevan Mission heads, parliament provided Rs 63,146.62 crore. Of that, a whopping Rs 40,531.57 crore (64.2% of the sanctioned amount) was unspent. “Savings”.
The Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation spent Rs 26,257 crore out of a provision of Rs 77,389 crore. The “saving” was Rs 51,132 crore, but the net result is that the scheme to provide drinking water to all hasn’t fully delivered on its promise, and it is not for want of funds.
In summary, the government has not been able to spend money collected and earmarked for drinking water, housing and pollution control. This is not a “saving” as much as it is a failure to convert much-hyped budgetary promises into quantifiable public capacity.
In a word, what the CAG report points to is a word that has been increasingly surfacing in the public sphere: accountability. Or the lack thereof.
06/08/2026