V. N. Kaul

Vijayendra Nath Kaul was the tenth Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) from 2002 to 2008.^[1][2] He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2014.^[3][4][5]

Early life and background[]

Vijayendra Nath Kaul was born to Satindra Nath Kaul and his wife Padmavati (née Kak) in Jammu in a Kashmiri family with a long history of public service. His great grandfather Rai Bahadur Radha Kishen Kaul was the Judicial Minister and later High Court Judge of Jammu & Kashmir up to 1913.^[6] His grandfather Pandit Narendra Nath Kaul, an early Indian Cantabrigian, was the Revenue Minister of the princely state of Jammu & Kashmir.^[7] Kaul is married to Veena (née Razdan) and has two sons.

Kaul started school at Presentation Convent in Srinagar but after a couple of months he was moved to Rev J.D.Tytler's school in Delhi. He completed Senior Cambridge in 1959 from St. Joseph's Academy, Dehradun.^[8] He got his B.A. (Hons) and master's degrees from St. Stephen's College, University of Delhi in 1964 and he joined the Indian Administrative Service in 1965. Kaul was allocated the Madhya Pradesh cadre of the IAS and began his civil service career as Assistant Collector, Bilaspur District in the then State of Madhya Pradesh. His other field postings in Madhya Pradesh were Collector and District Magistrate, Shahdol District, Collector and District Magistrate, Durg District and Commissioner, Indore Division.

Civil service career[]

Kaul has worked at senior levels in government and in the United Nations. He served in the Indian Administrative Service up to 2002 and retired as Secretary,^[9] Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas on being appointed the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. Prior to serving as Petroleum Secretary he was Secretary^[10] in the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers^[11] and the Ministry of Coal.^[12] Earlier, he was Finance Secretary, Secretary, Commerce and Industry and Principal Secretary, Finance and Home Departments of the Government of Madhya Pradesh.^[13]

He has been Chairman of public sector and joint sector companies in Madhya Pradesh and in the Government of India including Chairman, Petronet LNG.^[14] He has also served as a Director on the Boards of many private companies . He has been closely associated with international organisations. Besides working in the UN system he has been inter-alia on the Governing Boards of the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions, Vienna (INTOSAI) and the Asian Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (ASOSAI) .^[15]

United Nations[]

Kaul has had two stints in the United Nations. He was Regional Adviser, Trade Policy with United Nations-ESCAP at Bangkok, Thailand from 1991 to 1998. ^{[16][17] [18]} He served for a second time in the United Nations from 2008 to 2011 as Vice-Chairman of the United Nations Independent Audit Advisory Committee, New York.^{[19] [20]}

Comptroller and Auditor General of India[]

As C&AG of India, Kaul modernized and strengthened public audit in India. He introduced seminal reforms in audit practices by promulgating, for the first time, clear guidelines on the extent and scope of audit and by developing an internationally benchmarked methodology for performance auditing. He believed that technology would play an increasing role in determining the effectiveness of accounting and auditing activity in India. Therefore, he was a strong votary of the view that public audit and accounting in India should be transformed and made far more effective at less cost through judicious use of cognitive technologies, robotic process automation and data analytics. Two other major policy initiatives taken by him are still works in progress. The first was the need for department wise Audit Committees and for greater functional autonomy for Internal Audit. The second was to move the arcane government cash based accounting system to a modified accrual system in line with accounting practices of most modern countries in order to achieve greater coherence and transparency in government accounts. The Finance Commission agreed with his views and the Government Accounting Standards Board (GASAB) was created for this purpose.

Kaul was on the panel of external auditors of the United Nations from 2002 to 2007. He was elected^[21] to audit the WHO.^[22] Kaul was also the External Auditor of the Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome,^[23] the International Maritime Organization (IMO), London,^[24] and, the World Tourism Organization, Madrid.^[25]

From 2002 to 2008 he was Secretary-General^[26] of ASOSAI.^[27] and the Chairman of the INTOSAI's IT Audit Committee.^[28]

He has been a member of the Eminent Persons Advisory Group^[29] of the Competition Commission of India^[30][31][32] Kaul was also a member of the Oversight Committee for monetisation of immovable assets ^[33] of Air India constituted in February 2013 to advise on the process of valuation and sale of saleable assets of Air India.^[34]

References[]