Setting a Cost Baseline That Survives Audit

India's public-works framework does not treat a cost baseline as a management artefact; it treats it as a sanction. Rule 136(1) of the General Financial Rules 2017 forbids commencing a work or incurring liability until administrative approval, expenditure sanction, a sanctioned detailed design, estimates framed on the Schedule of Rates maintained by CPWD or another Public Works Organisation, and funds provided for the year are all in place. This advisory sets out how to freeze that baseline, where the line falls between a variation absorbed within it and a revision that must go back up for approval, and which records the Comptroller and Auditor General is entitled to demand when it tests the result.

Part of AECS Research Global's publications programme — drawing on ARG's work across cost management, EPC advisory and integrated project delivery. Download the full report below.