Background of Local Bodies: A municipality can be defined as a unit of local self-government in an urban area. By the term ‘local self-government’ is ordinarily understood the administration of a locality – a village, a town, a city or any other area smaller than a state – by a body representing the local inhabitants, possessing fairly large autonomy, raising at least a part of its revenue through local taxation and spending its income on services which are regarded as local and, therefore, distinct from state and central services.

Municipal government in India covers five distinct types of urban local authorities, viz., the municipal corporations, the municipal councils, the notified area committees, the town area committees and the cantonment committees.

Audit Programme for Local Bodies:

(i) The Local Fund Audit Wing of the State Govt. is generally in charge of the audit of municipal accounts. Sometimes bigger municipal corporations e.g. Delhi, Mumbai etc have power to appoint their own auditors for regular external audit. So the auditor should ensure authenticity of his appointment.

(ii) The auditor while auditing the local bodies should report on the fairness of the contents and presentation of financial statements, the strengths and weaknesses of system of financial control, the adherence to legal and/or administrative requirements; upon whether value is being fully received on money spent. His objective should be to detect errors and fraud and misuse of resources.

(iii) The auditor should ensure that the expenditure incurred conforms to the relevant provisions of the law and is in accordance with the financial rules and regulations framed by the competent authority.

(iv) He should ensure that all types of sanctions, either special or general, accorded by the competent authority.

(v) He should ensure that there is a provision of funds and the expenditure is incurred from the provision and the same has been authorized by the competent authority.

(vi) The auditor should check that the different schemes, programmes and projects, where large financial expenditure has been incurred, are running economically and getting the expected results.