No CAG report on coal scam: PM

Mar 22, 2012 |

New Delhi

Tags:

With media reports of audit raking up a coal scam, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday said the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has clarified there is no report and maintained there was no need for him to clarify in Parliament.

"The CAG has clarified there is no report. When there is no report what is there to clarify," he told reporters at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

He was asked questions on the media report on the basis of an initial auditor report which had estimated a loss of over Rs. 10 lakh crore on account of allocation coal blocks to 100 public and private sector companies without auction during 2004-09.

Singh said the CAG has written a letter and the PMO has released a part of the letter.

On the roll back of the hike in passenger fares in the Railway Budget, he said the new minister has promised that it will not have any effect on the budgetary estimates.

He has also promised to make up for the loss through advertisements and disposal of commercial utilisation of land.

Asked about apprehensions over safety over the railway system, impacted by shortage of funds, the Prime Minister said the railway minister has said safety was his prime concern.

To a question on the controversy over the latest poverty estimates, he said there was need for a multi-layered approach to issues.

The methods to assess poverty estimates were not satisfactory as it was not inclusive. "We are going to devise a new method," he said adding a committee has been constituted to go into it.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/136257" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-a7ed1b6a80118e1487ef8e28ba5e7faf" value="form-a7ed1b6a80118e1487ef8e28ba5e7faf" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="92263170" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>