By IANS,
New Delhi : The Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) Monday examined R.P. Singh, one of the key authors of the 2G audit report, who had reportedly disagreed with the presumptive loss of Rs.1.76 lakh crore suffered as the scarce telecom spectrum was not auctioned.
Singh, the former director general of audit, post and telecommunication, deposed before members of the multi-party parliamentary probe panel Monday afternoon.
JPC sources told IANS that Singh was asked about the alleged differences within the government’s top auditing agency, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), on the 2G report, particularly about quantifying the losses to the exchequer.
There was no immediate official word on what the former auditor told the JPC members.
Singh had prepared a draft audit report on the 2G telecom pricing in which he hadn’t quantified the exact financial losses due to lack of auctioning of spectrum, but observed that the 2001 pricing policy was not “realistic” in 2008 when the telecom sector had boomed.
He had noted that the 2G loss could be at Rs.2,645 crore — much lower than the presumptive loss of Rs.1.72 lakh crore reported by the final audit report.
The draft report dated May 31, 2010, is now with Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that oversees the government’s spending and also examines the CAG reports.
Singh was kept away when the audit report was finalised, according to documents obtained by NDTV news channel through a Right to Information application.
But his signatures are there in the final report, even as the channel reported that he was not given enough time to read it. The former audit official has refused to give any media interviews on the issue.
The JPC is also scheduled to examine Comptroller and Auditor General Vinod Rai, who had written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh saying he had not commented on the government’s policy in the audit report on the alleged 2G scam.
The meeting with Rai was supposed to happen Monday but has been postponed by a day.