New Delhi, April 7 (Inditop.com) Communications Minister A. Raja Wednesday said the telecom department will “duly respond” to the queries of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) which has accused him of causing a loss of Rs.26,685 crore to the exchequer in awarding licences in 2008.
“The CAG is sending some queries and it will be duly responded to by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) in a day or two,” Raja told reporters here on the sidelines of a conference organised by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.
According to the CAG report, Raja had disregarded the advice of many experts and followed a faulty and outdated policy to issue new telecom licences.
The minister is accused of issuing new pan-India telecom licences in 2008 at a price of Rs.1,651 crore, which was fixed in 2001 when the mobile subscriber base was 45 million.
The auditor said many experts had suggested to DoT that the award of new licences should be re-examined as the entry fee had not been revised since 2001.
In 2008, when new licences were awarded, the industry had grown bigger and the subscriber base had expanded to over 300 million from 45 million in 2001.
CAG is a constitutional authority and audits all government departments and public sector enterprises every year. Its reports are placed before Parliament, but it is up to the government to take appropriate action on the findings.
In an FIR, the CBI has also accused some DoT officials and executives of private telecom companies of manipulating licence terms and conditions.
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