A Parliamentary Committee has refused to accept the statement of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry that the persons who signed documents relating to payments to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in 2005 had since retired.

      The Public Accounts Committee headed by Dr Murli Manohar Joshi said officers responsible for the fudiciary loss of Rs 33.9 million to the government must be made accountable.

       According to an earlier report of the PAC, Prasar Bharati was to pay Rs 75 million per match for 12 one-day cricket matches to the BCCI during 2005. However, it had been made clear that this was subject to a minimum playing time of seven hours per day and Prasar Bharati would pay hour-wise for days when the match was played for less than this duration and not pay any money if a match was cancelled.

      While five matches were held for less than half the duration, an audit report had shown that Prasar Bharati had not paid for one match not played and one played for less than half the duration at Mohali.The PAC had at that time been angered by the remark by the then Secretary in the Information and Broadcasting Ministry attributing this loss to ‘an unhappily drafted agreement.’In the report laid in Parliament earlier this week on the action taken pursuant to the earlier report, the Committee said it wanted to be apprised of any recoveries from BCCI or its response, and said it was not satisfied with only interim replies and wanted final replies.

      Taking umbrage at the response of the Prasar Bharati and the Government that the recommendations had been taken note of for future guidance, the PAC said it wanted details of remedial action taken and also the steps taken to recover missing or untraceable documents. It also wanted responsibility to be fixed for failure to recover the missing or untraceable files.

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