Congress allegations are misleading, says Ravi Shankar Prasad
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The claims were made on the basis of preliminary observations in CAG audit report.
A day after the Congress linked the ouster of Ravi Shankar Prasad with large-scale corruption in the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), the former Union Minister termed the allegations false and misleading.
Mr. Prasad said the allegations were made in the context of some preliminary observations in the audit report by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, in relation to which a suitable response was being given by the Ministry and thereafter the final report would be prepared.
“National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN), during UPA, did not even take off at all…With the involvement of CSC SPV where the Chairman is Secretary, MeitY, usage of BharatNet has grown manifold. All this has been done with the due approval of the Digital Communications Commission,” Mr. Prasad said.
In its preliminary finding, the CAG said the Narendra Modi government’s BharatNet programme, which intends to connect six lakh villages with high-speed Internet, failed to take off due to financial irregularities, and despite a huge payment to the common service centres (CSCs), the maintenance of cable and other infrastructure was not found efficient in various circles.
“CSC has done the Bharat Net operation and maintenance work at a much lesser cost than any other organisation. Due to the efforts made by CSC in improving the BharatNet network, the utilisation of the network in terms of number of FTTH connections and data consumption has increased immensely,” Mr. Prasad said.
“It is to be noted that under the present government, the Ministry of Communications has grown from the dark days of 2G during the UPA to the 4G regime and it is on the way to 5G. It is difficult for the Congress to understand that under the NDA government the role of middlemen and lobbyists has been eliminated and decisions are being taken on merit and fairness,” Mr. Prasad said, adding that the country had not forgotten how bouncers and middlemen had crowded the Sanchar Bhawan during the UPA regime for the award of licences.
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