-The Business Standard The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) on Wednesday called for a level playing field for getting information for auditing purposes. Pointing out that responses from government departments were often delayed, CAG Vinod Rai said “the auditor is not given the powers which a man on the street has”. He was speaking at a panel discussion at the Business Standard Annual Awards here on Wednesday. Rai was referring...

-The Economic Times With its draft report alleging a coal scam, duly leaked to the media, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) is making a habit of choosing sensation over sense. Its allegation of loss to the exchequer in allocation of 2G spectrum colours the public discourse on the subject, but was discarded by the CBI court in the telecom case as the basis for a formal charge.  Its assumption that the...

-The Economic Times   The national auditor is expected to stick to its controversial estimate of Rs 10.7 lakh crore as gains accrued to companies due to allocation of coal blocks on government discretion instead of Auctioning them, an official in the Comptroller and Auditor General's (CAG) office said.  This is set to further embarrass the UPA government that has been mired in a series of controversies. "The report is not yet final,...

Comptroller and Auditor General Vinod Rai on Tuesday trashed the suggestion that the federal auditor's estimate of undue gains to companies caused by the government's failure to Auction coal blocks was "fallacious" or "erroneous". "We are incapable of making fundamental errors as being discussed in media. Our report will make clear all doubts on fallacies (that are) being talked about," Rai said at a seminar on 'Public Accountability and the Role...

The coal ministry has told the national auditor that its observations about “windfall gains” to private and state-run entities as a result of allocation of coal blocks without Auction were “fallacious and erroneous”.   The ministry has rejected the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG)’s observation that due process was not followed in allocating blocks, and insisted that a “fair and transparent” system was followed, and decisions taken after intense scrutiny and extensive...