Office of Chief Adviser Cost

Office of the Chief Adviser Cost (CAC) is responsible for advising the Ministries and Government Undertakings on cost accounts matters and to undertake cost investigation work on their behalf.  Office of Chief Adviser Cost is one of the divisions functioning in the Department of Expenditure. It is a professional agency staffed by Cost/Chartered Accountants.

           Chief Adviser Cost Office, is dealing with matters relating to costing and pricing, industry level studies for determining fair prices, studies on user charges, central excise abatement matters, cost-benefit analysis of projects, studies on cost reduction, cost efficiency, appraisal of capital intensive projects, profitability analysis and application of modern management tools evolving cost and commercial financial accounting for Ministries/Department of Government of India. 

         It was set up as an independent agency of the Central Government to verify the cost of production and to determine the fair selling price for Government Departments including Defence purchases in respect of the cases referred to. The role of the office was further enlarged and extended to fixing prices for a number of products covered under the Essential Commodities Act, such as, Petroleum, Steel, Coal, Cement, etc. under the Administered Price Mechanism (APM). Since cost/pricing work in the Ministries increased significantly, various other Ministries/Departments started to have their in house expertise by seeking posting of officers for work needing expertise in cost/commercial accounts matters.  In the Post liberalization era, the office is receiving and conducting studies in synchronization with the liberalization policy of the Government in addition to the traditional areas of cost-price studies.

        Chief Adviser Cost’s Office is also cadre controlling office for the Indian Cost Accounts Service (ICoAS) up to Adviser (Cost) level and looks after training requirements of the officers for continuous up-gradation of their knowledge in addition to rendering professional guidance to the ICoAS officers working in different participating organizations.