The Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, on Saturday sought to downplay the draft CAG report on coal block allocations. He said most of the issues raised by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) at the initial stages are usually dropped after the respective Ministry's comments.
“The fact of the matter is that it is not a report by itself. The CAG is yet to finalise its report. After obtaining comments of Ministries, 90 per cent of issues raised initially by CAG are dropped. That is the normal practice and it is going on for 150 years,” Mr Mukherjee said at a post-Budget meeting organised by FICCI here.
The Finance Minister said that the CAG's job was to find out the faults and not to praise or certify that the Government has done a good job.
“I don't understand why unnecessarily sensationalisation takes place,” he said, referring to a newspaper report on the coal block allocation issue.
Even if irregularities are found in a CAG report, they have to be addressed by Parliament, he said. Mr Mukherjee also said that the CAG himself said in his letter to the Prime Minister that no further clarifications were required and needed.
Open to talks
Meanwhile, Mr Mukherjee said he was open to talks with the Opposition parties to ensure that crucial economic Bills relating to pension, insurance and banks were passed at the earliest.
“I want to go with everybody. It is a multi-party democracy system that we are adopting. There is a federal structure. In a complex society, you cannot expect simple solutions.”