
CAG estimates on losses to BSNL from RJIL a misinterpretation, correction done: MoS Telecom
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The Comptroller and Auditor General of India estimates on losses to BSNL from Reliance Jio Infocomm was based on the misinterpretation of a clause on add-on technology, and it has been rectified in a transparent and equitable manner, Parliament was informed on Wednesday.The CAG report tabled in Parliament in April had said the government suffered a loss of Rs 1,757.56 crore as state-owned telecom firm BSNL failed to bill Reliance Jio for 10 years since May 2014 as per their agreement on passive infrastructure sharing."BSNL has Master Service Agreements (MSAs) with M/s RJIL, for leasing of BSNL's tower infrastructure to install their equipment. There is no revenue loss to BSNL and government. The estimate of CAG was based on the misinterpretation of the clause of add-on technology, which has now been rectified in a transparent and equitable manner. BSNL has since raised the revised invoices from RJIL," Minister of State for Telecom, Pemmasani Chandra Sekhar said in the Lok Sabha in a written reply.On measures taken by the government to fix accountability, recover losses and prevent recurrence of such lapses in the functioning of BSNL, Pemmasani said actions such as resolving the ambiguity in agreement clauses, monetisation of surplus inventory, issuance of revised demands and recovery have been taken."Further, PSUs have been advised to timely process bills and be extra cautious while taking policy/business decisions," he said.

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Indian Express
a few seconds ago
- Indian Express
After Mamata posts ‘torture' of Malda woman by cops, Delhi Police questions her, says no proof of her claims
Hours after West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee posted a video of a woman and her one-year-old child on her X handle, alleging that police beat up a migrant family from Malda's Chanchal area in BJP-ruled Delhi, police rejected the charge, claiming it was a concocted story 'that fell apart' after the woman was questioned. The family of Sajnur Bibi, the woman said to be in the video, however, stuck with their allegations against the Delhi Police. Bibi had claimed that policemen in plainclothes had come to her house in East Delhi's Geeta Colony at 11 am on July 26 (Saturday) and took her into custody despite taking her documents the day before. While in custody, she claimed, she and her one-and-a-half year-old son were beaten and she was forced to pay Rs 25,000. According to Bibi, the policemen took her to a park behind K R Mangalam Hospital where they subjected her to physical assault and extortion. Speaking to The Indian Express, Bibi's husband Mukhtar Khan said: 'I had gone out for work and my wife was cooking lunch (on Saturday). When I returned, she was nowhere to be seen. When I called her, she told me she had gone out to buy vegetables… After some time, I got a call from an unknown number… My wife had called me from someone else's phone and told me to come and get her because she had lost her way. When I went to pick her up from the park, I saw my child had bruises on his ear and forehead… She told me later what had happened,' said Khan. According to Khan, the police had come to their house a day before as well to verify whether the family were illegal immigrants. 'They took one look at our Aadhaar cards and told us that we're Bangladeshi… After that we kept getting calls from unknown numbers telling us that if we try to run away, we will be in trouble,' alleged Khan. Khan claimed that the calls frightened them, prompting him to make arrangements to leave for home in Malda. However, before they could leave for the railway station on Sunday, the police rounded them up and brought them to Madhu Vihar police station for questioning. The Delhi Police, however, said that the family was called for questioning on Sunday after the West Bengal chief minister posted a video on her X handle. 'We brought them in after we saw the social media post by the West Bengal chief minister. We had to verify their version of events since no one in the police station was aware of any verification drive being conducted in the area,' a Delhi Police officer said. 'We examined the CCTV footage along the entire route that the woman (Sajnur Bibi) said she was taken by the policemen. In the footage, she can be seen walking alone with her children… In fact, we even lined up all the police personnel in front of her and asked her to identify to us who had detained her and hit her child, but we got no answers,' DCP (East) Abhishek Dhania told The Indian Express. 'When we questioned both the husband and wife, they told us that she had actually lost her way back home. They later concocted the story after the husband's uncle – who is a political worker in TMC – told them to,' added the DCP. According to the police, the couple's Call Detail Record (CDR), too, didn't reveal any threats or extortion calls being made by anyone. Meanwhile, the chairman of West Bengal Migrant Labourer Welfare Board, Samirul Islam, claimed that the Delhi Police detained the family again to pressure them. 'This is nothing less than terror on migrants from West Bengal. Now, a child is also not spared. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee highlighted the plight of the mother and child detained by Delhi Police. Hours later, the family was again picked up by Delhi Police. They must be forcing them to deny the incident. This cannot be tolerated,' said Islam, a Rajya Sabha member of the TMC. According to relatives, Sajnur Bibi is a mother of three children and works as a caretaker in a public toilet along with her husband in the Pandavnagar area of Delhi. According to the woman's father -in-law, the family has been staying in Delhi for the past six years and hails from Malda. Meanwhile, relatives of the family in Chanchal, in West Bengal's Malda district, lodged a complaint with the local police on Sunday night. Ravik Bhattacharya is the Chief of Bureau of The Indian Express, Kolkata. Over 20 years of experience in the media industry and covered politics, crime, major incidents and issues, apart from investigative stories in West Bengal, Odisha, Assam and Andaman Nicobar islands. Ravik won the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award in 2007 for political reporting. Ravik holds a bachelor degree with English Hons from Scottish Church College under Calcutta University and a PG diploma in mass communication from Jadavpur University. Ravik started his career with The Asian Age and then moved to The Statesman, The Telegraph and Hindustan Times. ... Read More


Time of India
15 minutes ago
- Time of India
Online frauds cheat investors with fake luxury goods scheme, 8 arrested
Noida: Eight members of an online fraud racket that lured people with promises of becoming millionaires were arrested on Sunday. The accused operated via Google Meet, convincing targets to invest Rs 1.5 lakh by purchasing fake luxury goods like gold, diamonds, and watches. Payments were collected during the meetings, often in dollars or bitcoins. When investors failed to make profits, they were pressured to buy more products and even offered fake loans to continue investing. Those arrested include Vidhan Dagar (27), Kaushik Dagar (31), Tapas Dhara (28), and Ganesh Bera (23), natives of West Bengal; Satish Shaw (29) of Jharkhand; Kalpesh Raju Bhai (23) of Gujarat; Gurvinder Singh (29) of Ludhiana; Gurdeep Singh (39) of Punjab. All of them were residents of the Bisrakh area, Greater Noida. You Can Also Check: Noida AQI | Weather in Noida | Bank Holidays in Noida | Public Holidays in Noida Ten laptops, five tablets, 13 mobile phones, a cheque worth Rs 1 crore, 30 ATM cards, four watches, and a Swift car were recovered from their possession. According to Greater Noida's additional DCP Sudhir Kumar, a man named Pravin Kumar Pal registered a complaint stating that he and his cousin had been duped out of a large sum of money by an online business. Acting on the complaint, Ecotech-1 police traced and arrested the accused. Ecotech-1 police station in-charge Arvind Verma said the accused worked for a Dubai-based online company, commonly known as QNET/VIHAAN, which lured people in "get-rich-quick" schemes. The company was already under investigation in Delhi, Rajasthan, and Meghalaya. Explaining the gang's modus operandi, Verma stated that the gang held webinars on Google Meet and made the targets pay Rs 1.5 lakh to join the company. The targets were sold products such as gold, diamonds, and watches, and were told to resell them for bigger profits. In most cases, the victims did not receive the products. Those who did found them to be of substandard quality. "The accused now face charges under sections 318(4) (cheating), 351(2) (criminal intimidation), and 61(2) (criminal conspiracy) of the BNS at the Ecotech-1 Police Station," Verma said.


Time of India
16 minutes ago
- Time of India
Govt set to appoint consultant for project to ease T1-T3 travel
New Delhi: Commuting woes between Delhi's Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport's terminals 3/2 and T1 are finally on the authorities' radar. Delhi govt plans to appoint a consultant to study the feasibility and prepare a detailed project report for constructing a Y-shaped flyover and widening the tunnel road under the runway, according to sources. Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL) officials recently met PWD minister Parvesh Verma, who subsequently sent a team to the site for inspection and set the ball rolling to study and implement the proposal that had been gathering dust for years. "Minister Verma assured us of action in terms of appointing a consultant for the twin project," said a source. You Can Also Check: Delhi AQI | Weather in Delhi | Bank Holidays in Delhi | Public Holidays in Delhi Several years ago, DIAL had proposed doubling India's only tunnel-road-under-a-runway from the current six lanes as part of a comprehensive plan to make commuting between terminals 3/2 and T1 — almost 7km apart — less painful for transit flyers. With T1 handling four crore passengers annually (CPA), the volume of transit traffic has risen exponentially. Moreover, DIAL's proposed air train has also been delayed, with no sign of work on it beginning anytime soon. To handle the volume of transit traffic between T3/2 and T1 till an air train is ready, DIAL had proposed a Y-shaped flyover connecting the Northern Access Road to the road leading to Dwarka on one side and Indira Gandhi Road that leads to Dhaula Kuan and Vasant Vihar on the other. While the proposed flyover would make the commute between T1 and T3 signal-free at the currently choked NSG junction on T1 and Indira Gandhi roads, coping with the increased vehicular movement will require widening the Northern Access Road that links the two terminals. This includes the existing six-lane tunnel road (three lanes for each direction) that is proposed to be doubled by having an additional six-lane underpass section. It is learnt the entire project will cost Rs 300-350 crore. As the road belongs to PWD, DIAL has approached both the Delhi and central govts. "The project is proposed to be funded 20% by the state and 80% by Centre through its urban development fund. The request has been made, and both are seized of the issue," said a source.