CAG, 2G and 1.76 lakh crore ..

Naturally the people of the country are interested in knowing what happened to the Rs. 1.76 lakh crore loss raised by the Comptroller Auditor General on 2G spectrum sale conducted in 2008. Why the sudden loss of face for the govt and the CAG now ?

Vinod Rai, does he owe an apology to the nation ?

After the 2G spectrum auction conducted by the government recently on SC orders, following the apolitical CAG's political report on 2G spectrum sale in 2008, the central govt was shocked to find that less than one sixteenth of the speculative loss of rs. One lakh seventy six thousand crores, ie rs. 9500 crores, had been raised from auctions.

The reasons for the flop show as evident from the editorial from The Hindu, could be that the same buoyant conditions did not exist in the Economy now as in 2008, moreover the  teledensity had got to 70% perent from 25 percent then, with the consequent average revenue per user (ARPU) falling from approximately Rs 350 to less than Rs 100 now, and it is no more lucrative for telecom companies to bid at 3G rates of 2010, which amassed about Rs. 70,000 crores for the country. There was a time in 2010 when the number of subscribers were growing at a rate of 20 million a month, for the first time, in the past few months we have seen a negative rate of growth in mobile subscribers coming to less tha 10 million subscribers a month.. The country now has almost 900 million mobile subscribers, three times that of US and approximately 10 times that of England, Germany, France etc... Read this link

Times of India editorial goes this way ..

Does CAG owe an apology to the nation ? First Post article..

The big doubt in people's mind is : Has the public of the country been taken for a ride by CAG Vinod Rai when he took political sides or failed to grab the bigger picture of the commercial aspects of technology or the dynamic market forces behind any decison of the government. It is sad that the CAG is trained to work and comment only with accounts and numbers, he has failed to understand technology and its implications.

How can such a person holding a high constitutional post act in an immature fashion and jump the gun in shooting his peurile comments ?

Being an apolitical appointee of the former government was he too eager to show his concern for the country, its people and the party by his immature presumptive reporting of losses to the country, because of an earlier govt policy of spectrum sale and not auction ?

The CAG needs to be given a dressing down by the President  for having acted in great haste and not doing enough homework and not being technically qualified and competent to pass a crucial comment on a technical issue, misleading the people of the country. He gave an impression to the people as being unduly pressurised by some forces. Did he act for the greater common good or just wanted to raise an issue and score points ?

3G technology (moving data at high speeds) cannot be compared to 2G technology as it is more advanced and its commercial repercussions cannot be underestimated. Had he not just looked at the accounts and numbers and taken advice from technical experts, more so done some reading himself on the complex technology and the vast commercial opportunities with moving data at high speeds compared to 2G, CAG would have shown muted enthusiasm and would not have lost his face like now.

What a colossal waste of time, effort of the people because of a CAG who acted with some unknown vested interests ?

Let not such incompetent officers take the people of the country for a ride in future, at least .. !!! His continuing at the position only reinforces the common man's doubt whether political appointees can cling to such crucial constitutional positions in the country after committing such great blunders !!

Let us not belittle the post of CAG for the ill deeds of one man !! In future let not any constitutional figure give political fodder to parties based on incorrect, erroneous, presumptive facts and figures due to the indiligent arrogance and sheer ignorance of the person holding this high post..

As TOI editorial says, let us not waste time pointing fingers at each other. Instead let us work to improve telecom infrastructure and bring transparency in policy implementation. Policy making is government's turf, let not the CAG or courts interfere in them. At most they can point out the flaws and help to rectify them.

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