The mission of the IT Audit initiative was to create an enabling environment in Indian Audit and Accounts Department to conduct IT Audits effectively within the C&AG’s mandate; to raise the level of competence of the staff and officers of the department so that they can undertake audit in a computerised environment in a most professional manner; and to adopt and evolve such standards and guidelines for auditing in a computerised environment so as to lend credibility to audit activities in a computerised environment.

The idea of having the IT Audit wing was innovative given the fact that it has not been in the conventional mode of audit. Audit in a different environment posed a new challenge. Audit methods and the audit approach had to be modified. The need was also to move from a conventional transaction based audit to a systems based audit to provide assurance and highlight the systemic deficiencies, not limited to the deficiencies in the software only, but in the overall implementation and deliverance of the services through the IT systems. The initiative has enabled the executive, through recommendations, in improving their system’s performance and controls through the coverage of all the aspects such as the system development life cycle, the effectiveness of the services intended to have been offered, the coverage of the service bouquet,implementation issues, IS security, sustainability of the system etc.

A structured approach to conduct IT Audit has been evolved and the yardsticks based on the International Best Practices were adopted to evaluate the systems. A database of all IT systems in Government sector was prepared and is being updated on a continuous basis. This is the only database of its kind in the country with details collected from across the country and across the three levels of governance viz. Union , State and Local, apart from autonomous bodies and PSUs. The manpower in audit department was put through rigorous training to make it capable to meet the challenge of auditing IT systems of different kinds and on different platforms (Hardware/ software) and ranging from simple payroll to complicated ERP systems.

The number of IT Audits taken up so far has been 482 and out of these IT Audit exercises, 233 reports have already been approved for inclusion in the annual audit reports of the C&AG. 171 reports of IT Audit out of these 233 approved reports have already been placed before the Parliament / State Legislatures (As on January 2009). The number of IT Audits being conducted and being reported to Parliament / State Legislatures is consistently increasing.

The initiative has been a catalyst in assisting Governments, PSUs, autonomous bodies and municipal local bodies to improve its efficiency and effectiveness. The initiative brings to light the actual issues of effectiveness of various IT initiatives, that may be glamorous, but may also be non transparent to the populace and even the officials of the government because of the typical nature of the IT and the information stored by it.

The IT Audit initiative of SAI India was awarded with the Prime Minister Award for excellence in public administration in the year 2008 by the Prime Minister of India Dr Manmohan Singh.