With the Opposition gunning for Sheila Dikshit, the Delhi government on Monday claimed that there was no indictment of the chief minister or any other political leader in the report on Commonwealth Games projects by the Comptroller and Auditor General. Noting that the government has gone through the report of the CAG, Delhi Transport Minister Arvinder Singh Lovely said it has neither indicted Dikshit nor any other political personality.
The Comptroller and Auditor General report for 2008, released in New Delhi, also questioned the prudence of the Ministry in buying the second-hand Russian warship, which now comes at 'half its life-span and about "60 per cent more expensive' than a new aircraft carrier.
In line with the recommendations of the 12th and 13th Finance Commissions and the second Administrative Reforms Commission, the operational guidelines suggest shifting from the present cash-based accounting system to an accrual basis of accounting.
Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh has sent a missive to the Comptroller and Auditor General, expressing concern over delayed audit reports adversely affecting the flagship National Rural Drinking Water Programme. In a personal letter to CAG Vinod Rai, he has drawn attention to the ministry not being able to release funds to the states as they are not submitting audits of accounts of grants-in-aid along with the utilisation certificates.
Faulty laws helped oil majors IOC, HPCL and BPCL -- to avoid excise payment of Rs 713 crore (Rs 7.13 billion) to the government during April-December 2002, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India has said.
The apex auditor is busy preparing a report on the Air India-Indian Airlines merger and modernisation of airports through public-private-partnerships, both carried out during the previous term of the United Progressive Alliance government.
Rejecting the contention of private power distributors, the Delhi government on Wednesday ordered an audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General of their finances, fulfilling yet another election promise of the Aam Aadmi Party.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday asked the CAG not to sensationalise its findings to get into headlines, a view the Congress party had voiced in the past after huge notional losses were projected in reports on 2G and coal allocation scams.
The examination was scheduled to start at 1400 IST at 50 centres all over the country.
The move is significant as it would extend the power of CAG -- set up to audit central and state government departments as well as PSUs -- to private sector companies.
The civil aviation ministry initiated and then made a mess of the merger of the erstwhile Indian Airlines with Air India, according to a Comptroller and Auditor General report.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday questioned the safety of the Signature Bridge in East Delhi after the Comptroller and Auditor General objected to allowing use of pre-fabricated steel frames imported from China for its construction. "It is a serious issue that there is no mechanism with the Delhi Government to check the quality of material and fabrication work being done in China. This raises concern about the safety of the bridge," BJP leader Vijay Goel said.
Former top CAG official R P Singh on Monday appeared before the Joint Parliamentary Committee looking into the 2G spectrum scam and is understood to have stuck to his stand that the presumptive loss in the radiowave allocation was only Rs 2,645 crore (Rs 26.45 billion).
The Supreme Court had cancelled 204 such allotments.
A review of three years' audit reports of CAG showed that the state PSUs' losses of Rs 6,072.96 crore (Rs 60.72 billion) were 'controllable' with better management.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Murli Manohar Joshi on Sunday said that a Comptroller Auditor General inquiry should be conducted into expenditure made during Maha Kumbh Mela at Allahabad.
The Comptroller and Auditor General has pulled up leading public sector undertakings for glaring lapses in balance sheets, saying assets were overstated by Rs 377.43 crore (Rs 3.77 billion) in four Navratna companies including SAIL.
The comments by a former official of the Comptroller and Auditor General over the report on 2G spectrum allocation on Friday kicked up a row with Congress President Sonia Gandhi suggesting that the Bharatiya Janata Party had been exposed while the government demanded answers from Parliament's PAC chief M M Joshi over his alleged role.
Asserting that it has nothing to hide, the government on Thursday said it was prepared to discuss threadbare the CAG report on coal block allocation in Parliament and reply to the issues raised by the opposition.
The Comptroller and Auditor General, which had at the end of its first sitting with RIL in January suspended the audit of spending on the flagging KG-D6 block following differences with RIL over scope and extent of the scrutiny, is likely to resume it next two weeks.
Disagreements over scope of audit cropped up on the very first day the Comptroller and Auditor General of India began to the second round of audit of spendings on eastern offshore KG-D6 fields with RIL alleging that the auditor was not confirming if the accounts scrutiny would be as per the provisions enshrined in the Production Sharing Contact.
The Delhi government on Friday said Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit has not been indicted by the Comptroller and Auditor General on corruption charges for dubious Commonwealth Games projects and the auditor has only pointed out certain "procedural wrongdoings".
Even as the Bharatiya Janata Party paralyses Parliament on the allocation of coal blocks by the Centre, its own government in Chhattisgarh had come under attack from Comptroller and Auditor General for allocating coal blocks at 'abnormally low' rates that led to a loss of over Rs 1,052 crore.
The tabling of CAG reports on coal block allocation, power and Delhi airport on Friday prompted erstwhile Team Anna to target the political class once again as it accused all the parties of being together in corruption and benefitting from the "loot" of natural resources.
Reliance Industries on Saturday said it had never contested the government's right to get the company's spending on KG-D6 gas fields audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General but hoped it will not be subjected to a performance audit."RIL has at no time contested the government's right to conduct an audit by any agency, including the CAG, as provided in Section 1.9 of the Accounting Procedure of the PSC," the company said in a statement on Saturday evening.
The Comptroller and Auditor General of India on Friday criticised the previous National Democratic Alliance government for undervaluation of a number of public sector units, including Balco and VSNL, where equity was divested.\n\n
Audit scrutiny of expenditure on foodgrains (Rs 37.4 crore) and cash dole (Rs 44.59 crore) revealed delay in distribution, doubtful purchase of material, doubtful distribution of foodgrain and non-submission of detailed contingent bills.
The 19-member National Syllabus and Teaching Learning Material Committee (NSTC) will be headed by National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA) chancellor MC Pant and develop textbooks for classes 3 to 12.
The government on Monday firmly rejected the Opposition's contention that the CAG had indicted the Prime Minister's Office on the Commonwealth Games issue and insisted that constitutional processes must be followed before blaming anyone.
Against the backdrop of dispute over figures of presumptive loss in 2G spectrum allocation, the Comptroller and AG has said the draft report which had put Rs 2,645 crore as one of the loss figures could not "conclusively" bring out the potential loss and merely highlighted "possibilities."
Comptroller and Auditor General Vinod Rai on Wednesday rejected reports that there was pressure from Parliament's Public Accounts Committee chairman Murli Manohar Joshi to expedite audit work of 2G spectrum allocation and said no findings were ever shared with the PAC.
The Comptroller and Auditor General on Friday pulled up the previous NDA government for diversion of funds and incurring unauthorised expenditure of Rs 63.23 crore (Rs 632.3 billion) for the 'India Shining' media campaign.
The CAG, in its much-awaited report tabled in Parliament on Thursday, did not say if the capital expenditure for KG-D6 being raised from $2.4 billion proposed in 2004 to $8.8 billion in 2006 was unjustified or inflated.
Defying doctor's advice, an unwell Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal met CAG Shashi Kant Sharma to discuss the issue before going into a Cabinet meeting.
Describing these as non-working companies, the CAG in its latest report on the state tabled in the Maharashtra Assembly stated that since no purpose may be served by keeping these units in existence, the state government needs to expedite closing down of these non-working PSUs.
Former CAG lead auditor R P Singh, who had questioned the loss figure of Rs 1.76 lakh crore in 2G spectrum allocation, on Tuesday came under fire in the JPC with opposition members contesting his claim.
In an editorial in its mouthpiece Saamana, the Uddhav Thackeray-led party said Prime Minister Narendra Modi should first respect uniform law by disqualifying 40 MLAs including Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, whose Urban Development department has taken action against 18 ex-corporators from the Bhiwandi Nizampur City Municipal Corporation (BNCMC).
Vinod Rai, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India till May and probably the most talked-about government official in the last few years, participated in a Live Chat with readers of Rediff.com on Friday.
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