Centre says Isro deal is under review
New Delhi, Feb. 7: The government on Monday was hit by a news report of yet another scam with allegations surfacing that a private company was given the high-value bandwidth without any competitive bidding and at throwaway prices by the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro).
Coming under swift attack from the BJP and the Left parties in this matter, both of whom sought explanation from the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, the government issued two clarificatory statements on the matter.
The department of space in a fire-fighting exercise issued a statement late on Monday evening admitting that the agreement between Antrix, the commercial arm of Isro and M/s Devas in January 2005 is already under review by it. It also assured that “the government will take whatever steps are necessary to safeguard public interest”.
The department’s statement came after an earlier statement issued during the day by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) stating that the audit of “certain activities” of the department of space is on. The CAG had further said that “very preliminary queries have been raised which are yet to be replied by the department of space”.
The BJP demanded that Dr Singh explain why the private firm was allocated “rare” S-band spectrum without a bidding process and at a low price.
Reacting to the report claiming that the CAG is probing the allotment of 70 MHz from the available 2500 MHz of S-band spectrum to Devas multimedia for 20 years, the main Opposition demanded that the agreement between the private firm and Isro should be immediately terminated.
The private firm is owned by Mr M.G. Chandrasekhar, former scientific secretary at Isro, the report says.
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