What happened
In its April 2026 report, the Comptroller & Auditor General found that Central government ministries have ₹54,282 crore in outstanding utilisation certificates — meaning taxpayer money was disbursed but no one ever confirmed it reached its intended destination. Some of these pending receipts date back to 1985, when Rajiv Gandhi was Prime Minister and the internet did not exist. The government additionally managed to misclassify ₹12,754 crore and short-transfer ₹9,222 crore to reserve funds in the same fiscal year. The CAG has been filing these findings consistently for decades; ministries have been ignoring them with equal consistency, making the annual CAG report India's most faithfully produced and least consequential piece of literature.