New Delhi, January 17: Treading along the Congress line, planning commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia has disagreed with comptroller and auditor general’s (CAG’s) calculation of a presumptive loss of Rs1.76 lakh crore in the alleged 2G spectrum scam.
“We have not made calculations of what would have happened if we had gone for revenue maximisation. The way CAG has done it [calculation] is, in my view, not the correct way of doing it,” Ahluwalia said.
It is not fruitful to question how much money could have been raised as the emphasis of the telecom policy since 1999 has not been on revenue maximisation, he said.
Focusing on the “revenue losses” contradicted the entire policy of the government, which was aimed at extending mobile services across the country, Ahluwalia said.
Asked about the alleged windfall gains made by new telecom operators — Swan Telecom and Unitech Wireless — he said, “This money did not go to the promoters, it went into the new companies and is meant to be used to roll-out telecom services.”
Telecom minister Kapil Sibal had recently slammed the CAG for its projection of Rs1.76 lakh crore presumptive losses terming its methodology as “utterly erroneous.”
–PTI