'PMO, Cabinet not aware of Devas deal'

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday said the PMO and the Cabinet were not aware of the Isro-Devas deal, but failed to convince the Opposition which alleged that key officials of the government and PMO were aware of allocation of spectrum for a paltry amount.

Addressing the issue during question hour in Rajya Sabha, the PM stuck to the line he took at his recent interaction with TV editors, maintaining that Isro did not inform either the Cabinet or the PMO that the deal involved allocation of valuable S-band spectrum to the private firm.

The denial was prompted by a query from BJP's Prakash Javadekar whether PMO was aware of the deal. "There was no question of Prime Minister's Office being asked to approve this deal. It never came to that level," Singh said. Antrix Corporation, the PM said, was a commercial arm of Isro and in normal course, its deals like the one with Devas did not come to the government for approval. "These things do not come to the government for approval," he said.

Only the launch of two satellites "came to the Cabinet," the PM said. "It did come to the Space Commission. But it (Devas-Antrix deal) was not mentioned even in the Cabinet note, that there was a specific commitment under this agreement," he clarified.

Unimpressed by the clarification, leader of opposition Arun Jaitley spoke of the involvement of former minister of state in the PMO, the cabinet secretary as well as officials there in the deal. Referring to the PM's claim about Isro not keeping the Cabinet informed about the deal with Devas, Jaitley said several steps ought to have been taken before the matter was brought to the PM and his Cabinet colleagues. "The Space Commission is involved. We are given to understand that the minister of state in the PMO, the principal secretary to the PM, the NSA and the cabinet secretary were all privy to that decison," he said.

Jaitley also said the agreement provided that the private company was entitled to use 90% of 70 MHz S-band spectrum for a quantum of money that was "completely inadequate".