Congress alleges Rs 45,000-crore telecom scam

NEW DELHI: The Congress on Thursday accused the Modi government of burying under the carpet what it called a telecom scam of about Rs 45,000 crore to help “crony capitalists”.

It said despite a Comptroller & Auditor General report exposing revenue losses to the government due to half a dozen telecom companies underreporting revenue, the telecom ministry is delaying recovery of the money by going for a reevaluation of CAG’s findings.

This is being done “through chartered accountants empanelled with the telecom ministry”, AICC chief spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala alleged. The licence and spectrum fee that telecom companies need to pay the government are calculated based on their revenue.

According to the CAG report in February, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, Idea Cellular, Reliance Communications, Tata Teleservices and Aircel collectively understated gross revenue amounting to Rs 46,045.75 crore between 2006-07 and 2009-10, causing a loss of Rs 12,488.93 crore to the national exchequer. The companies had rejected the accusation.

The Congress-led UPA was in power during the period covered under the CAG audit. The Congress asked the BJP government why it isn’t upholding the national auditor’s findings and whether it is a breach of public trust by the BJP which had earlier made a notional loss estimated by the CAG in telecom sector as a major issue of corruption.

The Congress said if the Prime Minister failed to give answers to its questions, the party will raise the issue in Parliament. That would be concern for a government looking for a smooth monsoon session starting on July 18 where it wants to push the GST Bill through.