As the head of comptroller & auditor general's office, Vinod Rai may be a thorn in the flesh for the Manmohan Singh government but the strong and independent evaluation by his office of government's accounts on revenue raised and money spent has secured India a 14th rank among 100 countries in the biannual survey of the global open budget survey (OBS) for 2012.

The international survey was released last month but the detailed findings about the South Asian countries were made public in New Delhi on Thursday.

According to OBS-2012, India (score of 68 out of 100 in the open budget index) leads South Asian nations in a global survey of transparency in disclosure of budgets. "India has done well overall because its performance of audit is very strong," Ravi Duggal, programme officer of the Washington DC-based International Budget Partnership (IBP) told Governance Now on the sidelines of the programme to release the survey.

The survey assesses whether governments make eight key budget documents available to the public. These documents are the pre-budget statement, executive's budget proposal, enacted budget, citizen’s budget, in-year report, mid-year review, yearend report, and audit report.

On audit report information, India scored 71 out of 100. "In recent years, the CAG has exposed so many scams (that) media and civil society groups get access to information," Duggal said.

However, he also said that with more resources, the audit office can do much more to engage with the public and social audit, as well as listen to civil society groups on use, or misuse, of public resources.

The report recommended, "Increase the comprehensiveness of the audit report by publishing reports on the total expenditures by the national government through its budget within six months of the end of the budget year and by providing legislators with detailed audit reports related to the security sector and other secret prorgammes."

While India did substantially well on providing information of audit report, according to the study the country came up short on engaging citizens with the budget process. In 2010, India’s score was 67 out of 100, which went to 42 in 2012.

"The government engages more with corproate sectors and industries, but the experience on engagement with civil society groups has not been very good," Duggal said.

The meeting with civil society groups started in 2010 by then finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, where he used to actively participate in it. This year, a meeting with civil society groups took place in January without finance minister P Chidambaram and his chief economic advisor Raghuram Rajan’s participation.

"Increase the quality of citizen’s budget by consulting with the public prior to producing it and by producing citizen’s budget on budget plans and execution," the report suggested.

One major concern that Duggal flagged off was the weak participation of legislatures with the budget process at any stage. "Debates around the budget are very weak when this (budget) session lasts for more than a month. Only issues like scams, increase in tax, or giving more subsidy on LPG cylinders are discussed when adequate has been given on each line ministry for engagement in parliament. That's the sad part," he remarked.

The report also took on India for not issuing a pre-budget statement giving information linking government policies and budgets, and which and typically sets forth the broad parametres of the budget proposal presented to the legislature. "The pre-budget statement is an important document that looks at budget in long-term perspective. There should be greater commitment towards publishing a pre-budget statement and a citizen’s budget," said Subrat Das, executive director of New Delhi-based think-tank Centre for Budget and Government Accountability (CBGA).

According to the report, Afghanistan is the only South Asian country with a pre-budget statement. Forty-seven countries out of 100 countries surveyed publish a pre-budget statement, it noted.