Cabinet Approves Slew Of MoUs, Creates Post Of Deputy CAG

The Union Cabinet on Monday gave its nod to multiple Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) and the creation of one post of the Deputy Comptroller & Auditor General.

An official statement said the Deputy Comptroller & Auditor General would oversee coordination among state audits, audit of telecommunication and coordinate the various Information Systems (IS) initiatives within the Indian Audit & Accounts Department (IA&AD).

The post of Deputy Comptroller & Auditor General (Coordination, Communication and Information System) has been created at Pay Level-17 (by abolishing one STS level post) in the Office of the Comptroller & Auditor General of India. The expenditure on account of the creation of this post will be approximately Rs. 21 lakh, the official statement said.

The Cabinet also gave ex-post facto approvals to the Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) between India and Bolivia on cooperation in the field of Geology and Mineral Resources, and the Field of Traditional Systems of Medicine and Homoeopathy.

Another MoU between India and Cambodia on Cooperation in the field of Communications got the Cabinet’s nod. All three MoUs were signed in March 2019.

The Cabinet also gave its approval for a cooperation agreement between the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy of India and Ministry for Energy, Utilities and Climate of the Kingdom of Denmark. This agreement will focus on strategic sector cooperation in the field of renewable energy with a focus on Offshore Wind Energy and a Letter of Intent to establish an Indo-Danish Centre of Excellence for renewable energy in India. The agreement too was signed in March 2019.

The Cabinet also said an MoU was signed in February 2019 between India and South Korea. The Department of Posts, Ministry of Communications, and The Ministry of Science and ICT (Korea Post) have mutually agreed to jointly issue postage stamps on the theme Queen Hur Hwang-ok of Korea. The joint stamps will be released on a mutually agreed date by the end of 2019, an official statement said.

The Cabinet was also apprised about an MoU signed in May 2018 between India and Brazil. The MoU has been signed to strengthen the ties between India and Brazil to work out the future agenda for the collaboration for innovation in Science & Technology diplomacy, to evolve a concrete strategic plan in the area of biotechnology education, training and research.

The broad areas of collaboration are biomedicine and health, especially biotech-based products, agriculture breeding practices, bio-fuel and bio-energy, nanotechnology and bioinstrumentation, and biodiversity and taxonomy.―The Hindu Business Line