CAG report is not the last word: Pranab

Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee on Friday said the Comptroller and Auditor General's (CAG) report on the allocation of 2G spectrum should not be taken as the final word on the subject, and it was important to wait till the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) had examined the report.
 
"It was the CAG's job is to point out the financial irregularities," he said at a Hindustan Times function. "I'm not raising any doubts about the CAG's bona fides. But this is not the end. The report will have to be re-examined by the PAC, further evidence will be called for. Only then will we have the final report of the CAG."

The CAG report has estimated the government lost revenue of around Rs 1.77 lakh crore because of the modalities of sale of spectrum adopted by former telecom minister A Raja in 2008. An uproar in Parliament and the media over the alleged scam forced Raja to resign last Sunday.

Mukherjee said that had the government received additional funds from sale of 2G spectrum, it would have spent the amount on social sector schemes. ''If I would have got that money, I would have spent it in social response,'' he said.

The CAG report uses the whopping revenue of Rs1.06 lakh crore the government earned by auctioning 3G spectrum earlier this year to buttress its view that 2G spectrum was sold too cheap. But Mukherjee said extrapolating revenue estimates based on revenues earned by selling 3G spectrum may not be right.

"I expected auction of the 3G spectrum to realise around Rs 35,000 crore," he said. "I don't think anyone disputed that figure either." In fact the earnings were much more.

"Please remember this type of calculation is sometimes made with hindsight after seeing experiences in other areas," he said.