Govt favours discussion on 2G issue

Against the backdrop of claims made by a former CAG official on its report on 2G spectrum, government today favoured a discussion in Lok Sabha on the "serious" matter.

"The House must discuss it.... It is a serious matter which concerns a whole lot of people," Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kamal Nath told reporters here. He said the discussion is not on CAG, but on what (former CAG official) R P Singh has said.

"Obviously there is a concern among members and not only DMK but others also want to know as to what all it is about," he said, referring to a notice by DMK demanding a discussion on the issue.

Nath said the comments made by Singh almost amount to somebody making charges as he was once a part of the CAG. Singh had recently said that the Public Accounts Committee had suggested one of the methodologies to the CAG to calculate the losses due to 2G spectrum allocation, which were pegged at Rs 1.76 lakh crore in its final report.

Earlier he had also said that his superiors gave him "written order" following which he signed the final report on 2G spectrum allocation which gave the presumptive loss figure of Rs 1.76 lakh crore.

Singh had headed the CAG team that audited 2G spectrum allocation.