CAG refutes former colleague's estimate

Rai appeared before the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) headed by P C Chacko, a day after R P Si­ngh, ex-director general, audit (post and telecommunications) and lead auditor of the 2G audit report, claimed that the presumptive loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore was a “mathematical guess.”

The CAG also told the JPC that the DG (P&T) had given some other loss estimates in his draft report—Rs 1,02,498 crore and Rs 65,000 cr­o­re— and the earlier figure was included in the final report.

Rai also revealed that R P Singh had given a presumptive loss of upto Rs 4.19 lakh crore on account of 2G spectrum allocation, contradicting his claim that he was forced to accept a figure of Rs 1.76 lakh crore.

“Different figures on loss estimates ranging from Rs 2,645 crore to Rs 4.19 lakh crore were projected at different stages of the audit process,” Chacko told reporters after the meeting.

For not conducting the audit in the 2003-2007 period despite 51 licences being issued, Rai told the committee that the files related to these allocations were not made available to the CAG by the Department of Telecom.