The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has sought a public statement from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on a Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) draft report “exposing the connivance” between the government agencies and the Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) leading to huge losses to the exchequer.
Terming the CAG's observations “yet another example of the power of corporates” in the UPA government, the CPI(M) said a statement from Dr. Singh was necessary because the issue had a direct bearing on the interests of the common man.
The CAG had noted that the former Director-General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) permitted Reliance to inflate its “development costs” on extracting gas in the D6 block of the KG basin from $2.47 billion to a whopping $8.84 billion. “This money taken by RIL affected the revenues of the government. The government should prosecute the former DGH without any delay,” said a statement issued by the party's Polit Bureau.
The government's “connivance” with RIL directly affected the common man because increased claims of development cost were reflected in the price of gas given to consumers. This also affected the prices of fertilizer and power.
The Polit Bureau regretted that in a repeat of the 2-G scam, the Prime Minister's silence on the issue has again “exposed the UPA government's acquiescence to corporate manipulation.”
