Sorry, No if you think so.
The government was forced
out to auction 2G spectrum after the Supreme Court cancelled license of private
telecom operators. The government expected to garner Rs 40000 crore from this auction.
Though the government was optimistic, a lot of people have already raised
eyebrows regarding the expected revenues to be collected. Predictably, the
auction could only collect even less than one-fourth of the expected revenue
that is Rs 9,407.64
crore. And this prompted the media
and the government to declare it a big flop!
The results were a cause of
celebration for the Congress party, as if it has just won the 2014 general
election! All the ministers, party members are busy in attacking CAG, media and
the like-minded people (see here, here, here). Here
is a counter-argument by Nripendra Misra an ex-chairman of Trai Hence, they concluded since government is in the
job of welfare of the people, this job is better left to them, not to other
constitutional bodies.
Well, much has been said and
much will be said on this flop-show.
But I fail to understand how
can the government compare two altogether different situations? The CAG calculated
the loss figures of Rs 1.76 lac crores in reference to the year 2008 when the economy
was resilient, on a much better footing than today and telecom sector was
darling of the market and investors. Remember the CAG also calculated three presumptive loss figures (Rs
57,000 Rs 67,000, and Rs 176,000 crore). Whether it is economic
outlook, addition of new subscribers, average revenue per user, availability of
credit, investors’ confidence, all were on a different planet in 2008 when the
fundamental of the economy were much strong than in 2012. So Rs 9,407.64 crore is a big amount in a depressed and bleak economic
atmosphere.
Since,
both the business men and some ministers were involved, the auction might have been
designed in such a way to prove them right and CAG and the like-minded people wrong!
Or may be, the telecom payers were colluded. Instead of analyzing the failures,
key ministers are busy venting their anger on the CAG.
Irrespective
of the fiasco, the CAG must continue its effort to bring out scams, squandering
of public money.
