New Delhi: Citing a preliminary report by the Comptroller Auditor General of India (CAG), Congress leader Pawan Khera on Saturday claimed that large scale corruption is the primary reason for shunting out Ravi Shankar Prasad from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY).
However, the Congress leader has demanded an independent, high-level, time-bound enquiry into the findings.
Citing the findings of the CAG's preliminary audit, the Congress leader said that the Narendra Modi government's BharatNet programme, which is aimed at connecting six lakh villages with high-speed Internet, has failed to take off due to financial irregularities. This startling revelation has been made by the CAG in its preliminary audit which has been submitted the ministry, Khera said.
Notably, senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad, who was holding three key ministries, was asked to resign just a few hours prior to the expansion and reshuffling of Modi Cabinet.
In a 94-page draft report, the CAG said that despite a huge payment to CSC, or Common Service Centres set up by the ministry, the maintenance of cable and other infrastructure was not found efficient in various circles. This resulted in poor quality of service at a gram panchayat or village block level, the report said. It has also quoted many instances where work was completed only on paper.
The report has pointed out that a payment of Rs 386.42 crore and Rs 116.50 crore was made between July 2019 and December 2020 to CSC under this ministry.
The arrangement is part of a tripartite agreement for operations and maintenance of optical fibre cable network, telecom equipment and Wi-Fi access points between the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF), Bharat Broadband Network Limited (BBNL) and CSC done in July 2019 and approved by the Digital Communication Commission (DCC) in September 2020.
Quoting the report, Khera said that a devious modus operandi was used for redirecting the government money to private companies without following due process. The Congress leader also asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to tell the country what action will be taken against persons who siphoned off funds to the tune of thousands of crores.
"Is this the reason for removing Ravi Shankar Prasad from Cabinet and is the removal of a minister from the Union Cabinet enough?" he asked.