Finance ministry sources have countered CAG audit finding of central government wrongly retaining Rs 47,272 crore of GST compensation cess meant for states, saying temporary retention cannot be termed as diversion.
The only reason for the new deal is to give Rs 30,000 crore to industrialist Anil Ambani, the Congress chief alleged.
The report said a dedicated organisation for dealing with safety issues awaits government's sanction.
Every twist and turn in KMC's civil service career is attributed to serendipity, an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident. He plays down his capabilities, which took him to the top of the civil service as the Cabinet Secretary or his misfortune in losing a daughter in her prime and suggests that his career was indeed serendipitous, observes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
The CAG said the strategic missile system, which were to be deployed on the China border, procured from the state-run Bharat Electronics Ltd were deficient in quality.
'People should realise that what we are fighting for today is actually for tomorrow, for future generations.'
'They will be able to ride over this immediate crisis and carry on, but they need to take corrective steps and these will have to be long term measures which must include working closely with state governments.'
The CAG report, tabled in Parliament, states the interest on the short payment stood at Rs 1,052.13 crore for the period up to March 2016.
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The CAG has pulled up the union government for adopting an erroneous process of devolution of IGST to states and short-transfer of cesses to reserve funds, which resulted in under-reporting of deficit figures for the 2017-18 and 2018-19 fiscals. The Integrated Goods and Services Tax (IGST), which is levied on inter-state sale of goods and services, is shared between the Centre and states in the 50:50 ratio. In its report on the union government accounts tabled in Parliament, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) found that a sum of Rs 13,944 crore was left unapportioned and retained in the Consolidated Fund of India (CFI) in 2018-19, even though the amended IGST Act now provides for a process for ad-hoc apportionment of IGST.
'There should be total transparency in the system.'
The opposition party also said that it would be improper on the part of Mehrishi to present the report in Parliament.
The report noted that the 2007 UPA deal included a 15 per cent bank guarantee against advance payments.
Jaitley said the CAG report has reference to the shortage of ammunition in relation to a point of time.
The Union government's fiscal deficit works out to be Rs 5.47 lakh crore or 36.3 per cent of the budget estimates at the end of October 2021 on the back of improvement in revenue collection, according to the data released by the Controller General of Accounts (CGA) on Tuesday. The deficit figures in the current fiscal appear better than the previous financial year when the gap between expenditure and revenue had soared to 119.7 per cent of the last year's Budget Estimates (BE) mainly on account of a jump in expenditure to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. In absolute terms, the fiscal deficit was Rs 5,47,026 crore at the end of October, the CGA said.
The Congress, which was not a petitioner before the apex court, wants the Rafale deal to be referred to a Joint Parliamentary Committee to go into the price arrived at by the BJP government versus the one negotiated by the previous UPA regime, as also how billionaire Anil Ambani's group with virtually no experience in manufacture of fighter jets was selected as an offset partner for the deal.
The CAG has found that the Union government in the very first two years of the GST implementation wrongly retained Rs 47,272 crore of GST compensation cess that was meant to be used specifically to compensate states for loss of revenue.
Mehrishi has emerged as the top choice for the post, the sources said, adding a formal order on this is expected soon.
The lack of proper coordination and disaster management plan on the part of railways resulted in the stampede at Allahabad station during last year's Maha Kumbh Mela in which 37 persons were killed, the Comptroller and Auditor General has said.
PAC Chairman K V Thomas, however, remained non-committal over these demands.
The government has suffered a loss of Rs 12,488.93 crore (Rs 124.88 billion) due to under-invoicing of gross revenue by six telecom companies including Reliance Communications, Vodafone and Bharti Airtel, the CAG said in a damning report on Friday.
The Congress on Monday sought a thorough probe in the Rafale defence deal and demanded answers from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, after a French media report claimed that 1.1 million (Rs 9.5 crore) was paid to a "middleman" by the aircraft manufacturer.
In a scathing attack on the Congress, Defence Minister Niramala Sitharaman on Monday alleged that the opposition party was "knowingly" misleading people over the Rafale jets' pricing.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani on Wednesday pitched for using the USO Fund to subsidise smartphones for select groups to help penetrate the digital revolution and said India should make the rollout of 5G or the fifth-generation technology standard for broadband cellular networks a national priority. As much as 5 per cent of the licence fee paid by telecom operators goes to the Universal Service Obligation (USO) Fund, which was set up in April 2002 for achieving universal service objectives by providing access to telephone services in rural and remote areas and creation of infrastructure for mobile services and broadband in these areas. However, according to the CAG, less than half of the funds so collected are transferred for the said purpose.
The government's decision to buy 36 Rafale fighter jets from French company Dassault has become a controversial political issue, with the main opposition party Congress levelling allegations of corruption and impropriety, and the ruling dispensation defending the move.
The country will not allow any "unilateral action" on its border and will pay any cost to thwart such attempts, he told the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha's state conference.
The Central Bureau of Investigation has booked ace Bharatnatyam dancer and former Chairperson of Sangeet Natak Akademi Leela Samson for alleged "unfruitful expenditure" in Rs 7.02-crore renovation project of Koothambalam auditorium of Kalakshetra Foundation, Chennai.
The BJP said the email purportedly by an Airbus executive referred to a helicopter deal and not Rafale.
"How many more lies will be peddled to sustain a sinking dynast? India, certainly deserves better," Jaitley said.
RINL wiped out its losses in 2005-06 with money from the government.
A determined opposition on Tuesday forced the adjournment of Parliament demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over the CAG report on coal block allocation
Observing that the "CAG is not a munim (accountant)" the Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a plea challenging the Comptroller and Auditor General's power to conduct performance audit of controversial allocation of coal blocks by the UPA government.
Criticising Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for making a statement on the CAG report on coal block allocation in Lok Sabha, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday said it will continue to demand his resignation and boycott the "corrupt" government in Parliament.
Gandhi claimed that if a JPC probe was conducted, names of PM Modi and businessman Anil Ambani will come to the fore.
Instead of only government departments and state-owned undertakings, the CAG can now audit private companies, too.
The CAG report noted that availability of 55 per cent types of ammunitions was below minimum inescapable requirement to be maintained for operational preparedness and 40 per cent types of ammunitions were in critical level, having stock of less than 10 days.
Congress party has alleged that Modi government is surreptitiously taking steps to protect the interests of six leading telecom companies.
With the Congress party baying for his blood, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Monday broke his silence on the CAG report on irregularities in loan extended to his family-linked Purti Group.
Changing tracks helps. But, not taking the beaten path isn't always helpful. This is the story of two of India's biggest privatisations - Air India and Bharat Petroleum (BPCL). Nearly two decades after the last privatisation, a landmark divestment concluded this year when the loss-making national carrier Air India was sold to the Tatas.
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