Vijayendra Nath Kaul joined the Indian Administrative Service in 1965 after securing a postgraduate degree in history from St Stephen’s College,Delhi.He was sent to the United Nations in 1991 and was adviser, trade policy for the Asia-Pacific region for UNESCAP in Bangkok for seven years.An expert in international trade and finance, he is a fellow of the World Bank’s Economic Development Institute and also external auditor of the Food and Agriculture Organization,
the World Health Organization, the International Maritime Organization, and the World Tourism Organization. He has also been Secretary to the Government of India in the Ministries of Coal,Chemicals & Fertilizers, and Petroleum & Natural Gas. He is fond of bridge, tennis and golf
gfiles:Where do we stand globally?
VN Kaul:We are much ahead of others in the world.Nobody in the world is as independent as we are.Our CAG is the most important and independent body in the world. Even in the US,the CAG is under Congress. In India, we are answerable to neither the executive nor Parliament.
gfiles: But don’t you have political pressures?
VNK: No.There are absolutely no political pressures. In the past five-and-a-half years,I have never ever been asked by anypolitical person to do him a favour or yield to pressure.
gfiles: Do you have competent manpower?
VNK:If you are talking of competence in terms of knowledge then lack of knowledge is not a question.Sometimes it might happen.Criticism is there.But, by and large,our audit team is fairly competent compared to any other similar organization in the world.
gfiles: I mean the level of technical know how of the personnel,technical competence…
VNK:We are adopting new technologies and gearing up for a complete IT audit system.In spite of a manual audit system,I would say manpower is not a constraint.We have the largest manpower in the world, with the exception of China.Our strength is 55,000.Though we have abolished 4,000 posts this year,I can still keep up to 72,000people.Here,the question is not of manpower but of changing and improving the system.
