Galina Izotova, Acting Chair of the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation, held a meeting with representatives of the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of the Republic of India, who visited Russia to participate in a multilateral seminar on the audit of railway operations and multimodal transportation to be held in Suzdal (Russia) on June 28.

During the meeting, Galina Izotova and Subir Mallick, Deputy Comptroller and Auditor General of India, head of the Indian delegation, stressed the high level of relationships between Russia and India.

The extensive cooperation between our countries designated since 2010 as a special and privileged strategic partnership covers a wide range of issues, including peaceful nuclear development, military and technology interaction, and cultural exchanges,

Galina Izotova said.

The parties also discussed pending issues of interagency cooperation both in bilateral format and within international audit institutions (e.g. INTOSAI, ASOSAI) or interstate associations (e.g. BRICS). Galina Izotova invited SAI India to take part in the 4th Meeting of the Heads of BRICS SAIs scheduled for 2024.

Galina Izotova thanked SAI India for the support of the projects and initiatives run by the Accounts Chamber within INTOSAI, including creation of a Task Force on Healthcare and Social Security Audit.

We intend to make up a collection of cases and best practices in healthcare audit, which may be supplemented by an online version,

the Acting Chair of the Accounts Chamber said.

Galina Izotova also told her Indian colleagues about the efforts taken by the Accounts Chamber in digitalization:

We have released a collection of cases and best practices on Digital Transformation of Public Sector. The casebook includes 35 issue-specific SAI’s cases in five key areas of digital transformation.

Furthermore, Galina Izotova emphasized that Digital University for the INTOSAI Community might be an important dimension of the cooperation and invited her Indian colleagues to jointly develop a U-INTOSAI course.

As for the bilateral cooperation, the parties expressed interest in strengthening interaction in audit of railway operations. Big data analysis, government budget audit and information technology audit were also mentioned as promising areas of the cooperation. Galina Izotova proposed holding a Russian-Indian online seminar to share knowledge in data analysis in the second half of 2023.