Bhubaneswar, Nov 22 (IANS): The Comptroller & Auditor General of India (CAG) will conduct the natural resources accounting (NRA) for a tighter scrutiny and accounting of mineral and energy resources of this country.

CAG Girish Chandra Murmu said this while inaugurating the new office building for the Principal Accountant General (audit) here on Monday.

Speaking at the function, Murmu said the nation is looking forward to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to make life better for the future generations.

"We have started natural resource accounting because prudential optimisation of all the resources is now required versus the development," he said.

Development is required at the same time the natural resources should be very prudently used and the trade-off should be a win-win situation, he said, adding the NRA would improve the accountability of the executives.

"Now, successive Finance Commissioners have allotted huge chunks of money and all the centrally sponsored schemes are implemented through the local bodies. So the accounting of each penny has to be there. It is not only from our auditor point of view but is from the government's point of view that it has to be accounted for on a real-time basis," he pointed out.

Currently, states are conducting the audits of the local bodies. The CAG will extend all cooperation to them as a result of which real-time audit of local bodies will be possible, he explained.

Murmu said that to facilitate the process, the CAG is trying to integrate FMS, IFMS, Priya Soft and others so that the money flow is seen there.

He further expressed that the main aim of the organisation is to improve the management of the auditee establishments and to suggest value addition to the performance of the organisation in the delivery of services.