Tata Communications, the Internet service provider from the Tata group, has questioned the government

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on the need for a second audit by the CAG when the Department of Telecom is already conducting a special one.

Recently the Department of Telecom (DoT) issued a letter to Tata Comm asking it to provide accounting records for three years from 2006-07 for all services offered under the ISP licence, which will be provided to the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG). The DoT is acting as a liason between telecom companies and the CAG for an audit by the latter.

The ISP responded to the DoT saying the Department has already appointed S K Mittal & Company to conduct a special audit of the company and now the one by the CAG is 'extraneous'.

"We believe that the audit under progress is the only special audit provided in the license agreement and the audit by the CAG is extraneous. Another audit by the CAG does not appear to have been prescribed over and above the special audit and is seen as an avoidable exercise, involving a lot of man hours at this time when the annual accounts for the year 2009-10 are to be drawn up.

"Hence we request you to kindly advise us on the provisions of the licence agreement providing for a second audit by CAG," the ISP said in a communication to the DoT.

When contacted, Tata Comm did not respond to questions relating to the letter it has written to the DoT.

DoT officials said the license revenue division, which handles such issues, is yet to take a call on the issue raised by the company in the letter.

On Friday, the apex auditor lamented that the private telecom operators are not providing their account books to it, despite a request from the government.

"In the telecom sector, we have still not got access to records of private service providers despite the request for such audit coming from the government itself," Comptroller and Auditor General of India Vinod Rai had said.

The DoT had earlier asked five leading telecom companies-- Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, Tata Teleservices, Vodafone Essar and state-run BSNL-- to give their accounting details for three years from 2006-07 to the CAG.

The move is aimed at auditing accounts of these telecom operators to ensure they paid proper revenue share to the government as per licence rules.

Before that, the DoT had undertaken a special audit of Bharti, Vodafone Essar, Idea and Tata. Only the report on Tata is yet to be submitted.