State Bank of India chairman backs CAG, hails substantive work

State Bank of India Chairman Pratip Chaudhuri has come out in defence of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), hailing its "substantive" work.

CAG has come under attack after its report on coal block allocations has led to a political showdown, resulting in the Monsoon session of Parliament nearing washout.
 
"I am glad that the CAG has moved away from finding faults in the bills for tea and biscuits, to more substantive issues," Chaudhuri said.

Chaudhuri also said that if the 58 coal blocks under scanner were de-allocated, banks don't stand to be affected, as all the power companies to which lenders have exposure are big names and can thus arrange coal from outside.

In more appreciation of the professionalism at CAG, Chaudhuri said, in many cases CAG officials have moved away from running full-fledged audits when they felt it was not reasonable enough to pursue.

The comments from the chairman of the country's largest lender come at a time when there is an intense public debate over the recent reports by CAG on coal block allocations and land allocation to the Delhi airport, which have pegged notional losses at nearly Rs 2 lakh crore.

BJP is demanding resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who held coal portfolio in the past, over the coal allocation issue and has stalled Parliament for over a week.

CAG report claimed the exchequer lost a whopping Rs 1.86 lakh crore in unrealised revenue in allocation of coal blocks to private companies.

With inputs from PTI