Public Sector Enterprises & Utilities
Public sector enterprises and utilities play a vital role in delivering essential services, managing strategic assets, supporting economic growth, and ensuring efficient use of public resources. Through its audits, the CAG identifies operational inefficiencies, revenue leakages, contract management weaknesses, procurement deficiencies, and governance challenges that can affect organizational performance and financial sustainability. The examples presented in this section demonstrate how audit interventions helped public enterprises and utilities strengthen operational controls, improve billing and revenue recovery mechanisms, enhance procurement and contract management practices, reinforce safety and compliance frameworks, and optimize resource utilization. These outcomes highlight the value of audit in improving efficiency, accountability, financial performance, and service delivery across public sector organizations.
Key Case Studies
- Standardising yield norms in pig iron production, Steel Authority of India Limited
Fixation of yield norms: Yield norms formally fixed for Pig Casting Machines across all SAIL units (April 2025) (SDGs: 9, 12, 8)
- Loss of revenue due to incorrect billing in BSNL
Recovery action initiated: BSNL applied MSA provisions, including the escalation clause, to recover infrastructure sharing charges (SDGs: 8, 9, 16)
- Recovery of shunting charges, East Central Railway
₹24.91 crore recovered out of ₹27.54 crore assessed by field units as outstanding shunting charges (up to July 2025) (SDGs: 9, 16)
- Recovery of liquidated damages in Shree Singaji Stage-II Thermal Power Project, Madhya Pradesh
₹103.64 crore Recovered from EPC contractor a large-scale private construction company for delay in execution of the thermal power project (Stage II) (SDGs: 7, 9, 16)
- Strengthening procurement controls and recovery in Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs)
₹205.49 crore recovered by seven Central Public Sector Enterprises during March 2023 to March 2024 at the instance of Audit (SDGs: 8, 9)
- Audit-led strengthening of billing efficiency and additional revenue mobilisation in Uttarakhand Power Corporation Limited (UPCL)
Significant revenue mobilisation through regulatory enforcement: Audit-led reforms resulted in over ₹400 crore financial impact, including ₹328 crore ASD recovery and ₹34.09 crore in additional revenue (SDGs: 7, 8)
- Strengthening safety management framework in Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL)
Strengthened safety framework: Audit intervention strengthened the safety framework across SAIL’s integrated steel plants (SDGs: 3, 8)