With the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament on a questioning spree in 2G spectrum scam case, it has not gone down well with Joint Parliamentary Committee chairman PC Chacko who feels that the PAC has gone beyond its mandate, and wants a 'conflict' to be avoided. Chacko underlined that the PAC's mandate was limited to looking into accounting irregularities in the 2G spectrum allocation as highlighted by the comptroller and auditor general, and it should not give an impres
In a draft audit report on the KG-DWN-98/3, or KG-D6, block, the Comptroller and Auditor General said the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons allowed Reliance to hike capital expenditure for developing Dhirubhai-1 and 3, the largest of 18 gas finds in the block, by 117 per cent.
The government will send notices to 85 companies asking why their licences should not be cancelled for suppressing facts, said Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal on Monday.
2G Scam: SC ticks off CBI for not questioning Raja
Stung by the CAG's interim report which has found discrepancies in some deals, the Commonwealth Games Organising Committee (OC) on Thursday defended its broadcasting rights deal with Fast Track despite a high commission paid to them, saying the UK company had doubled the revenue target.
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.
The day after the closing ceremony, the Prime Minister's Office had asked the OC to make sure all documents were kept safe.
With the heat over the 2G telecom spectrum scam rising, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Thursday recommended the cancellation of 34 telecom licences of companies, including Etisalat, Uninor, Loop Telecom and Siestema, due to non-compliance of roll-out obligations.
The department of telecommunications (DoT) will soon start looking into the issue of ineligibility of recent licensees such as Unitech, Loop and Datacom, in the wake of the Comptroller and Auditor-General's scathing report. And, take action, if it thinks it is required.
Organising Committee chairman Suresh Kalmadi, under fire for his alleged involvement in financial improprieties related to the Commonwealth Games, on Wednesday said he is ready to face any Comptroller and Auditor General or judicial probe into the financial transactions.
The Comptroller and Auditor General's report on the 2G spectrum scam has been tabled in Parliament. The report was tabled in the Rajya Sabha by Minister of State for Finance (EB&I) Namo Narayan Meena. The report was placed in the Loks Sabha by Minister of State for Finance (Revenue) SS Palanimanickam.
The government on Friday asked the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) to suggest ways to curb its rising subsidy bill on food, fertiliser and petroleum products without hurting the targetted population.
Amid growing attack on Telecom Minister A Raja over alleged scam in spectrum allocation, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is expected to take a decision on his continuance in the Union Cabinet after his return from Seoul on Friday, highly placed sources said.
Navy has refused to disclose any details about procurement of six phased-out helicopters from the US worth Rs 182 crore for which it recently received a rap from the Comptroller and Auditor General.
The structure and the exact mandate of the high-level committee set up to probe the alleged financial irregularities related to the conduct of the Commonwealth Games 2010 remain unclear even a week after the setting up of the panel was announced.
A vacation bench of Justices M M Shantanagoudar and Deepak Gupta was informed by Guha's counsel that he had tendered his resignation on May 28 to Vinod Rai, Chairman of the Committee of Administrators of the Board of Control for Cricket in India.
"There has to be a transparent mechanism, where equal treatment is meted out to all. the 3G spectrum auction last year has shown that auction of spectrum is the best way forward," Pitroda said.
Amidst the controversy over its figures of revenue loss on account of allocation of 2G spectrum, government auditor, the Comptroller and Auditor General, on Monday said it stood by the report submitted to Parliament late last year.
Flanked by the Trinamool Congress chief, Naidu attacked the National Democratic Alliance government at the Centre alleging that institutions like the Central Bureau of Investigation, Enforcement Directorate, Income Tax department, Reserve Bank of India and Comptroller Auditor General are under "severe pressure".
In its communication to DoT, the DGA said the department had granted new unified access service licences to certain companies without proper verification of their eligibility and other credentials.
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.
Former Telecom Minister A Raja was being questioned again at the headquarters of the Central Bureau of Investigation in New Delhi on Saturday in connection with alleged irregularities in the allocation of 2G spectrum to certain telecom firms.
State owned public sector undertakings have turned into white elephants for one of the most poor states.
The government has paid commitment charges of Rs 86.11 crore (Rs 861.1 million) during 2009-10 in the form of penalty for not timely utilising the aid approved by multilateral and bilateral lending agencies.
The Comptroller and Auditor General of India report for 2010-11 on direct taxes, tabled in Parliament on Friday, revealed that 958 lakh (95.8 million) PANs were issued up to March 2010 but IT returns filed in the last fiscal were only 340.9 lakh (34.09 million).
CAG has come a long way from an institution created to set the British finances right after the 1857 revolt.
Former Telecom Minister A Raja today questioned in the Supreme Court the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) finding that the exchequer had suffered a loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore in the allocation of 2G spectrum, terming the figure as "mind boggling and speculative".
For over a year Sanjay Chandra, managing director of the Unitech group, has been under a cloud for various reasons.
Indifferent attitude towards withdrawal of uneconomical stoppages, "injudicious" creation of passenger amenities and failure to augment coaches on time have led the Railways to incur a total loss of Rs 79 crore, Comptroller and Auditor General said its report for 2009-10.
With over half the Plan funds that Parliament approves being spent through non-government channels, to cite the figure in CAG Vinod Rai's presentation to the Planning Commission, members of the Parliament have no way of knowing whether the money is properly spent.
Even after 10 years of its production, the indigenous Advanced Light Helicopter Dhruv still depends heavily on imports as most of its components are procured from foreign sources, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has said.
The government on Tuesday tabled in Parliament the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) report on 2G spectrum allocation, whose reported extracts have created a political storm and led to the resignation of Telecom Minister A Raja.
Apex auditor CAG on Friday lamented that private telecom operators are not providing their account books to it, despite a request from the government.
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 Comptroller and Auditor General on Monday said that the audit of certain activities of Department of Space were under way but made it clear that media reports on alleged scam in a deal between ISRO and a private firm cannot be concluded as its "findings".
Bureaucrats's memoirs are usually insipid versions of events and steer clear of controversy. Former Union home secretary C G Somiah, who retired as India's Comptroller and Auditor General, has chosen to take a refreshingly frank route in his autobiography The Honest Always Stand Alone (Niyogi Books).
"I do not want to boast (about) anything. The court's judgment has to be respected. I am glad that the court has pronounced unambiguously. All the massive propaganda which was being done against the UPA was without any foundation. The judgment speaks for itself," the former PM said.
Many will hope this is the beginning of a new phase in Dr Singh's tenure, when he lets his office, the government, his council of ministers, his party and coalition and the country know that he means business, that the buck stops with him, that his colleagues and officers must shape up or ship out, says Sanjaya Baru
Nine companies were given new licences in January 2008.
Slamming the Defence Ministry over the nine-year delay in awarding contract to French firm Thales to build six Scorpene submarines in Mumbai, a Parliamentary Committee on Wednesday said the indecisiveness resulted in cost overruns and undue favour to the vendor, besides adversely impacting Navy's operational preparedness.