The Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) hosted a seminar titled “Data Gaps: Managing India’s Public Finances” on Thursday, October 9, 2025.

The seminar featured a presentation by Shruti Gupta, Research Associate, CSEP. The presentation was followed by a conversation with Jayant Sinha, Deputy Comptroller & Auditor General (Government Accounts) & Chairperson (GASAB); Ashok Meena, Secretary, Department of Drinking Water & Sanitation and Former Finance Secretary Odisha; and Vidhu Sood, Secretary, National Financial Reporting Authority. The seminar was chaired by Laveesh Bhandari, President, CSEP and moderated by Anoop Singh, Distinguished Fellow, CSEP and Former Member, 15th Finance Commission.

About the event

With historic global trade rebalancing underway, public spending and fiscal policy are becoming the primary engines of growth. However, the timing is inopportune, given the historic highs of global debt. The effectiveness of fiscal policy and public spending will hinge critically on robust Public Financial Management (PFM) systems. However, the quality of PFM leaves significant room for improvement across the global landscape.

The fiscal governance team at CSEP has examined India’s PFM practices and identified the principal data gaps that affect reported data on India’s public finances, especially regarding debt, subsidies, and capital spending. The role of institutions cannot be overemphasised in building a strong PFM system. To carry out institutional reform, it is crucial to understand the nature and extent of the issues and practices that have detracted from critical data on government spending, especially at the level of the states. This seminar brought together a panel of experts from various institutions to discuss what next from here.

Chair

Laveesh Bhandari

Laveesh Bhandari is President and a Senior Fellow at CSEP.  Dr Bhandari has published widely on subjects related to sustainable livelihoods, industrial, economic, and social reforms in India, economic geography, and financial inclusion. He received his PhD in economics from Boston University for which he was awarded the Best Thesis in International Economics. He has taught economics at Boston University and IIT Delhi. Apart from applied economics research, Dr Bhandari has built, seeded, and exited from three companies in the research, analytics, and digital domains, including Indicus Analytics, a leading economic research firm. Currently, he is conducting research on issues of inclusion, India’s energy transition, and how it will impact the government as well as the economy.

Moderator

Anoop Singh

Anoop Singh is Distinguished Fellow at NITI Aayog, Government of India. He is also Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP), New Delhi. He was member, 15th Finance Commission of India.

Before that he has been Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University; Managing Director and Head of Asia Pacific Global Regulatory and Strategy Policy, JP Morgan; and Member of the Working Party of the Robert Triffin International (RTI) on the reform of the international monetary system. At the International Monetary Fund, he was Director of the Asia and Pacific Department; Director of the Western Hemisphere Department; and Director of Special Operations.

He holds degrees from the universities of Bombay, Cambridge, and the London School of Economics. His additional work experience includes being Special Advisor to the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India. His recent publications include Managing Public Finances in a New Global Era (2025).

Panellists

Jayant Sinha

Jayant Sinha is currently serving as a Deputy CAG (Government Accounts) & Chairperson, Government Accountings Standards Advisory Board (GASAB) in the office of the CAG. He belongs to the 1990 batch of the Indian Audit & Accounts Service.

Prior to this, he served as Additional Secretary & Financial Adviser to the Ministries of Planning, Information & Broadcasting, and Statistics and Programme Implementation. He has also served as Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Defence and the 7th Pay Commission; and as Deputy Secretary (Budget) in the Ministry of Finance. Within the CAG he held the positions of Principal Accountant General (Audit), Uttar Pradesh; Accountant General (Accounts), Jharkhand; Principal Director of Audit, High Commission of India, London and Secretary to the CAG.

At CAG, he has undertaken financial, compliance, and performance audits in both national and international contexts, including FAO, WHO, UNHCR and IMO. Assisting parliamentary/ legislative Committees like Public Accounts Committee (PAC) & Committee on Public Undertakings (COPU) at the Centre and in the States has been an enriching part of his audit assignment.

Ashok K.K. Meena

Ashok K.K. Meena, is a senior Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer from the 1993 batch of the Odisha cadre. He is currently serving as the Secretary in the Department of Drinking Water & Sanitation, Ministry of Jal Shakti, where he oversees flagship programs like the Jal Jeevan Mission and the Swachh Bharat Mission. Before joining as Chairman and Managing Director of FCI, he was principal secretary, Government of Odisha in various departments i.e. Panchayati Raj & Rural Development, Finance, and General Administration. He has also served as the Finance Secretary of Odisha between 2018-21 where he started the implementation of PFM reforms and introduced Fiscal Risk Management and Budget Transparency.

He has a B.Tech in Computer Science from IIT Kanpur besides Masters in Economics from Anna Malai University and Masters in International Development Policy in Public finance from Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University.

Vidhu Sood

Vidhu Sood is a civil servant. She belongs to the Indian Audit and Accounts Service and has over 20 years of experience in the areas of public financial management, public sector auditing, financial audit, and capacity building. She has undertaken financial audit of UN Secretariat and international audit assignments at the International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna. She is currently serving as Secretary of the National Financial Reporting Authority, India’s independent audit regulator.

Presenter

Shruti Gupta

Shruti Gupta is a Research Associate in the Fiscal Governance team within the Growth, Finance, and Development vertical. Her research focuses on Public Finance Management, with a particular emphasis on addressing fiscal challenges in India. She has assessed the problems of data gaps in India’s off-budget borrowings, subsidies, and capital spending in her recent publications.

All content reflects the individual views of the speakers. The Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) does not hold an institutional view on any subject.

Please contact Gurmeet Kaur at GKaur@csep.org for general queries and Ayesha Manocha at AManocha@csep.org for media queries.