The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear a PIL challenging appointment of Shashi Kant Sharma as the Comptroller and Auditor General of India.
Altogether 41,663 farmers in 383 villages in Washim, Yavatmal, Amravati and Buldhana districts of Vidarbha region were covered in the sample survey. Those reporting land holding in range of two to six hectares were 40 per cent and around six per cent reported land holding of more than six hectares, CAG said. Only eight per cent farmers confirmed visit of any government official in 2006, the report said.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Parliament's Public Accounts Committee Chairman Murli Manohar Joshi hit out at Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal for questioning the Comptroller and Auditor General report on the 2G Spectrum scam. He said that Sibal's comments showed both the PAC and the CAG in poor light and said that the telecom minister's conduct was unbecoming.
The Planning Commission has decided that approvals for all social sector projects undertaken by various non-government organisations, normally outside the purview of CAG, will come with the rider that they will be subject to audit, if required.
Railway officials also indicated that possible 'sabotage' and tampering with the electronic interlocking system, which detects the presence of trains, led to the Friday accident.
With the Comptroller and Auditor General reports on three critical sectors expected to be tabled in Parliament on Friday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has indicated that the government will effectively counter any Opposition attack on these issues.
Comptroller and Auditor General Vinod Rai on Monday briefed the Public Accounts Committee about his report in the 2G spectrum allocation. His report on a presumptive loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore in 2G spectrum allocation had created a storm in Parliament and outside. The PAC, headed by Bharatiya Janata Party veteran leader Murli Manohar Joshi, is examining the controversial allocation of 2G radio waves and Rai apprised the committee of how the audit looked into the whole issue.
A performance audit on Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guatantee Act found that Bihar was deprived of grant of Rs 9684.24 crore (Rs 96.84 billion) during 2007-12 in the shape of central share due to less creation of mandays, sharp increase in demand for fund without sufficient justification and unspent balance grant, said the report.
CAG in the audit report on land issues in three IT parks also said 64% land given for IT development remained unutilised since 1990
In a stinging attack on the Comptroller and Auditor General, the Congress on Monday alleged the government auditor was as much responsible as the Bharatiya Janata Party for the disruption of the just-concluded monsoon session of Parliament on the coal mine allocation issue.
According to an interim report of the government audit body, the loss should have been Rs 8,589.1 crore (Rs 85.89 billion), instead of Rs 5,551 crore (Rs 55.51 billion) as has been shown in the account books, sources said.
The remarks by the bench came on the plea by a non-government organisation -- Centre for Public Interest Litigation -- which was seeking a direction to the government for restraining it from regularising the license of the telecom companies, which failed to meet the roll-out obligations.
The Comptroller and Auditor General has pulled up Jammu and Kashmir forest ministry for allegedly diverting 1,883 hectares of forest land for non-forest purposes in violation of rules in Jammu district of the state.
The scarcity of resources is particularly evident in the case of Rajasthan compared to many other states.
Keeping up its attack on the Comptroller and Auditor General, the Congress on Thursday said the auditor was "not competent enough" to decide on the loss to the government in the coal block allocation issue "just on the basis of presumptions".The party also said that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was "clean" and no one could raise an accusing finger at him in the wake of the CAG report" and there has been "no error or wrongdoing".
Out of 122 Unified Access Service licences awarded in 2008, as many as 85 licences were given to the six new entrants to the telecom sector.
The state government allotted 50 acres of land near Visakhapatnam to Satyam Computer in December 2008 at a concessional rate of Rs 10 lakh.
Congress slammed former Comptroller Auditor General Vinod Rai for his claim that he was pressurised to drop names of those involved in scams during the United Progressive Alliance regime, saying "sensationalizing" things has been his staple.
Facing accusations of policy paralysis, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday admitted that growth rate had slowed down because clearances were not granted to infrastructure projects for the fear of Comptroller and Auditor General and Central Vigilance Commission.
"Before entering into any contract, the government will go through all details. We will assess the criticism, including that of CAG, on the issue. At present, the Gorshkov price escalation is in negotiation stage. Nothing has been finalised," Defence Minister A K Antony said during Question Hour.
Gadkari and Singh on Thursday came together to release a book on late Congress leader Ramkrishna More at Pimpri Chinchwad near Pune.
Days after a CAG draft report said his firm got out of turn favours from the oil ministry and its technical arm DGH, Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani on Friday met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Most politicians and even non-politicians have been honoured because of what they were purported to be electorally worth for the ruling party of their time, argues N Sathiya Moorthy.
According to an official close to the development, in the coming financial audit report, to be tabled in Parliament's Budget session next year, CAG will detail the slide in the government's share in petroleum sector profits due to a drop in gas production.
Reliance Industries has written to the government that it has no objection to the Comptroller and Auditor General of India auditing its gas field costs and said it is operating the field in compliance with rules.
Congress leader Digvijaya Singh on Tuesday claimed a senior railway official had flagged a fault in the signal interlocking system in February and warned of the train accident risk but the problem was not rectified which led to the Balasore train crash.
In an interview with Karan Thapar on the CNN-IBN channel's Devil's Advocate programme, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia explains why he faults the controversial report of the Comptroller and Auditor General on 2G telecom spectrum allocation. Edited excerpts:
The Comptroller and Auditor General detected financial irregularities of over Rs 10,000 crore in Bihar government departments during the financial year 2012-13.
A combative Sonia Gandhi on Thursday asked Congress MPs not to be defensive on the CAG report on coal blocks allocation and to aggressively counter the offensive launched by the Bharatiya Janata Party which is demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the issue.
Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh took a dig at Comptroller and Auditor General Vinod Rai on Thursday asking why does he not stop leak of reports from his office, a day after the latter deprecated the "brazenness" with which the decisions were being taken by the government.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said data is information and it will dictate history in the future as he exhorted for strong and scientific audits to make systems strong and transparent. Speaking at the Audit Diwas event of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), he said in the past information was transmitted in form of stories.
Despite the hope that lessons will be learnt, the next accident invariably shows that nothing has been learnt -- or if learnt, they have been ignored, observes Prosenjit Datta.
Nine companies were given new licences in January 2008.
What the INDIA alliance needs is neither a counter to Modi's tall personality and undiminished charisma nor a counter-narrative to his Hindutva agenda, now centred on the Ayodhya temple consecration on January 22, argues N Sathiya Moorthy.
It involved collection and maintenance of data in respect of the participants such as demographic details, biometric impressions and digital photographs. Sebi awarded the work of MAPIN to the National Securities Depository Ltd in May 2003 through a memorandum of understanding without competitive bidding.
The Comptroller and Auditor General said on Thursday that inventory assets of public sector undertakings had become a "vulnerable" area for divestment as these were not complete and not verified systematically.\n\n\n\n
Cardiac patients whose proposals for a regular health insurance plan get turned down should apply for a cardiac-specific plan.
Cairn India and UK's BG Group too replied to audit observations.
Government auditor CAG also noted in a report that these demands are "unrealisable 100 per cent".
The comptroller and auditor general has unearthed a Rs 450-crore scam involving the purchase of Israeli unmanned aerial vehicles by the Hyderabad-based National Technical Research Organisation, a technical arm of the external intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing. In the first ever audit of any intelligence agency in India, it was found that these UAVs were lying as junk.