Tuesday, November 16, 2010

CAG report on the Mother of Scams

If the Bofors scam, which triggered a collapse of Rajiv Gandhi's government, was worth Rs 64 crore, what would you call the Telecom scam?
Comptroller and Auditor General of India has indicted Telecom Minister A Raja confirming the allegation that he caused a revenue loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore during 2G spectrum allocation.

Highlights of the 77-page report:

  • Raja ignored Prime Minister’s advice on the issue

  • Issued 2G spectrum licences arbitrarily, at throaway prices


  • “flouting every canon of financial propriety, rules and procedures”


  • 85 out of the 122 licences were granted to “ineligible applicants” as these companies did not have the stipulated paid-up capital when they applied.


  • 45 of these 85 licencees were given to companies which failed to conditions of the main clauses in the Memorandum of Association, the report said.


  • Dual technology licences were given to without giving equal opportunity to other operators, the report said. Undue benefit were given to Swan Telecom, Shyam Telelink, HFCL.



J Gopikrishnan, a young reporter from The Pioneer, broke the story and followed the story relentlessly leading up to Raja’s resignation. This is his story


Read the full text of http://www.cag.gov.in/


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