NEW DELHI: Even as it blames Prasar Bharati for favouring the British firm SIS Live in the bidding for the Commonwealth Games broadcasting deal, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) says that the Information and Broadcasting Ministry delayed the tender process and left no options except to agree with the pubcaster‘s recommendations.

The CAG in its report on the Commonwealth Games with a full chapter on broadcasting also says Prasar Bharati amended the draft contract to allow SIS Live to "outsource almost the entire contract on the same day" to Indian firm Zoom Communications. SIS Live had been awarded the Rs 2.46 billion broadcasting contract.

In many ways, the CAG report supports most of the allegations framed by the V.K. Shunglu Committee appointed by the Prime Minister. However, the CAG report does not name then-Prasar Bharati CEO BS Lalli and former Doordarshan Director-General Aruna Sharma for causing a loss of Rs 1.35 billion as Shunglu had done. The report has, instead, pointed the finger at the Ministry and the pubcaster as a whole.
 
CAG in its section on the Media and Broadcasting Services says the award of the contract was flawed on several grounds.

"Lack of competition was facilitated by a rigid stand taken by Prasar Bharati at the stage of bidding, which restricted potential competitors, leaving only one ‘chosen‘ bidder," says the report. However, after SIS Live won the deal by virtue of being the sole bidder, the pubcaster amended the contract to "make it one-sided in favour of the SIS Live." Among the important amendments include the change of payment schedule, allowing a pre-Games payment of 60 per cent instead of 40 per cent of the contract.

The draft contract was amended to allow SIS Live to use "sub-contractors" such as Zoom Communications which went on to do the bulk of the work, but would not have been eligible to bid for the contract itself. The CAG report says this meant SIS Live was "acting essentially as a conduit" enabling the "back-door entry of Zoom".

The CAG also blames the oversight team, noting that the host broadcast management committee was marred by conflicts of opinion. "Of the 40 meetings for which minutes are available, only two are signed by all members. Objections to contract amendments were ignored."

Both I&B Minister Ambika Soni and Law Minister Veerappa Moily, who chaired the Oversight Committee together, did intervene, saying that changing the payment schedule should be re-considered. However, their intervention "did not have any lasting effect", notes the CAG.

I&B Ministry secretary Raghu Menon has admitted in a letter to the CAG that this was largely due to lack of time. The Ministry was "left with no alternative but to accede to the demands (of SIS Live), since non-telecast would be a matter of international embarrassment," says the report.

The CAG‘s report on the autonomous body also blames it for causing the loss of revenue of Rs 18 million by not allotting two vacant slots of its DTH platform despite 38 pending requests.

Menon wrote: "Given the circumstances and the fact that there is no time to initiate fresh process, the Ministry does not have the option of revisiting the issue." The secretary also mentioned that then Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrasekhar wanted the telecast to be ensured.

Soni at an Oversight Committee meeting constituted to provide policy direction on telecast issues, felt that changing the payment schedule can open legal intervention by other parties and said some parties chose to opt out of the bidding process because of the terms and conditions of the payment schedule.

In the same meeting, the CAG says, Moily felt the opinion of solicitor general Gopal Subramanium had not specifically given a finding on legality of changing the payment condition, which Soni said Subramanium should have done rather than leaving the decision to competent authority.