Evaluate the role of the Comptroller and Auditor General in strengthening accountability in the implementation of climate change missions in India.

The CAG, an independent constitutional authority under Article 148, audits not merely the legality of expenditure but its economy, efficiency and effectiveness. Its 2026 performance audit of the Green India Mission (GIM) — one of eight missions under the NAPCC [1] — demonstrates both the strength and the limits of this accountability role.

How the CAG strengthens accountability

• Measuring outcomes against declared targets: auditing 16 States/UTs over 2015-16 to 2024-25, the CAG found GIM increased forest cover on only 0.034 mha against a 1.4 mha target — a 97.57% shortfall — and improved forest quality on 0.114 mha against 1.4 mha (91.87% shortfall) [2].
• Exposing fiscal weakness: GIM received only about 48% of its approved ₹2,000 crore outlay over a decade [2], while PRS analysis shows only 28% of the 2025-26 revised allocation was utilised [3] — evidence of both under-funding and weak absorption.
• Independent technical verification: GIS-based ground-truthing showed roughly 70% of sampled sites had no discernible mission-attributable change [2], countering paper-based progress reporting.
• Diagnosing systemic causes: the audit flagged poor planning, weak inter-scheme convergence, and inadequate monitoring, converting a target miss into actionable governance findings.
• Parliamentary linkage: tabling in Parliament routes findings to the Public Accounts Committee, creating legislative pressure on the executive.

Limits of the CAG's role

• Audits are ex-post — GIM's failures surfaced nearly a decade after its 2014 launch, when corrective scope had narrowed.
• Recommendations are persuasive, not binding; delayed Action Taken Notes blunt their effect.
• The CAG cannot remedy root causes such as budgetary compression or state-level capacity deficits.

On balance, the CAG is indispensable but insufficient by itself: it supplies credible, evidence-based diagnosis that no internal review matches. Its impact would deepen through concurrent audits, outcome indicators linked to the India State of Forest Report, and time-bound ministerial compliance — strengthening the constitutional accountability chain that Article 148 envisages for India's climate commitments.