Vinod Rai IAS ( Comptroller and Auditor General of India)

Vinod Rai (born May 23, 1948) is the present Comptroller and Auditor General of India. He assumed office on 7 January 2008. He holds a Masters Degree in Economics from the University of Delhi, and Masters in Public Administration from Harvard University. He, a rare breed among civil servants is fearlessly showing up deficiencies of government as he is empowered by the terms of his employment, which mandate a six-year term, till 2014, that can be cut short only by impeachment.

Early life and education

He hails from Ghazipur, Uttar Pradesh. He did his schooling from Vidya Niketan - Birla Public School - BPS Pilani Rajasthan.

Career

Mr Rai is a 1972 batch Kerala cadre officer of Indian Administrative Service (IAS). He started his career as the sub-collector of Thrissur District. Later he became the Collector and spent his eight years of career inThrissur City. Thrissurians call him as the second Sakthan Thampuran for his service to the Thrissur City. He was the MD of Kerala State Co-operative Marketing Federation from 1977 to 1980. Later he was appointed as Principal Secretary (Finance) in the State Government of Kerala. He had served senior positions in the Ministries of Commerce and Defence, Government of India. Prior to his appointment as CAG, he served as Secretary, Financial Services and Additional Secretary in the Banking Division including banks and insurance companies under Ministry of Finance. Mr. Rai was instrumental in setting up the India Infrastructure Finance Company and was also on the Board of this company. Apart from serving in both, state and central governments, he has been a Director on several Boards including the State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, IDBI Bank, Life Insurance Corporation of India and Infrastructure Development and Finance Company of India.


He is currently chairman of U.N. Panel of External Auditors and member of the Governing Board of the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI). He has taken over as the chairman of Governing Board of the Asian Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (ASOSAI) on 29th February

2G Spectrum allocation

Main article: 2G Spectrum scam

He is widely credited for the report on issue of Licences and Allocation of 2G Spectrum which resulted in a huge controversy in the entire country. The report estimated that there was a presumptive loss of 176,645 crore (US$31.97 billion).[8] In a chargesheet filed on 2 April 2011 by the investigating agencyCentral Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the agency pegged the loss at 30,984.55 crore (US$5.61 billion) [9]


All the speculations of profit, loss and no-loss were put to rest on 2 February 2012 when the Supreme Court of India on a public interest litigation (PIL) declared allotment of spectrum as "unconstitutional and arbitrary" and quashed all the 122 licenses issued in 2008 during tenure of A. Raja (then minister for communications & IT) the main accused.[10] The court further said that A. Raja "wanted to favour some companies at the cost of the public exchequer" and "virtually gifted away important national asset".


Revenue loss calculation was further established on 3 August 2012 when according to the directions of the Supreme Court, Govt of India revised the spectrum price to 14,000 crore (US$2.53 billion)

CoalGate (Coal Mines Allocation)

Main article: Coal Mining Scam

WITH WIKI INPUT

Vinod Rai In NEWS