NEW DELHI: Delhi Assembly is the first Assembly in India to operationalise a real-time digital audit monitoring portal for monitoring of audit paragraphs and action taken notes (ATNs), its Speaker Vijender Gupta said on Monday.

Gupta observed that the adoption of the Audit Para Monitoring System (APMS) marks a significant step towards transparency, procedural discipline and a more accountable audit follow-up mechanism.

“APMS is now fully operational within the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi, and Delhi is arguably the first state assembly in the country to implement such a comprehensive real-time audit monitoring portal,” he added. The Speaker held a meeting to assess the status of action taken on the reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India.

He expressed concern while examining the status on the portal, which showed that 142 audit paragraphs had been uploaded by various departments, while only 30 ATNs had been submitted. He noted that such pendency is unsatisfactory and stressed that timely and complete responses are essential for enabling the Public Accounts Committee to discharge its mandate effectively.

During the meeting, the challenges in audit follow-up were discussed extensively. It was noted that many replies uploaded by departments were not in the prescribed form and therefore could not be placed before the Public Accounts Committee, said an official statement.

Gupta stressed that incomplete or informal replies cannot be considered valid ATNs and must be returned for correction. He directed that departments must submit corrected and properly formatted notes within three weeks. APMS is a digital platform developed by the Ministry of Finance Expenditure Department and conceptualised by the Controller General of Accounts, based on the Public Accounts Committee’s guidelines.

It enables end-to-end monitoring of audit paragraphs.