CAG questions Antony on US defence deal

By N C Bipindra

Express News Service

New Delhi: Was Defence Minister AK Antony party to his ministry’s decision to waive rules in favour of US aerospace major Boeing to escape its obligation to plough back $1.74 billion as offset into the Indian defence and aerospace industry? India’s Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has put the defence ministry on the mat over the $4.1-billion deal with Boeing to supply 10 C-17 Globemaster heavy lift cargo planes for the Indian Air Force (IAF) and eight P-8I Poseidon long-range maritime reconnaissance aircraft for the Indian Navy.

The defence offset policy mandates that a foreign vendor who wins any Indian defence contract worth over Rs 300 crore ($55 million) should plough back at least 30 per cent of the deal back into India. The P8-I deal worth $2.1 billion was signed in January 2009 and it was to bring $641 million as offset to India, while the C-17 deal worth $4.1 billion was signed in June 2011, providing for at least $1.1 billion in offset.

India was listed as the top weapons importer by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in 2011—$12 billion, the same year in which it emerged as the third largest buyer of American weaponry ($4.5 billion). Future deals with the US include a payout of $3.5 billion.

(Full report here: www.newindianexpress.com)

HAL spent Rs 116 crore and developed sub-standard INCOM sets, sans ECCM features for IAF: CAG Report

The copy of recent CAG report.

The CAG Report No 20 of 2011-12 (Air Force and Navy), tabled in Parliament recently, has come down heavily on Bangalore-based plane-making firm Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). The report is critical of HAL’s inability to deliver the much-needed communication sets with ECCM capabilities for IAF – which resulted in loss of time, money and non-availability of technology. "The Ministry/IAF accepted communication equipment, designed and developed by HAL, even though the equipment did not meet technical requirements. As on date, IAF’s critical requirement of jam-resistant and secure radio sets has not been met even after spending Rs 116 crore and considerable period of time," says the highly critical report.

HAL was to offer airborne sets to IAF for flight trials by June 1994 and ground-based sets for trial by March 1995. The INCOM airborne sets were planned for equipping different types of aircraft in IAF with the aim of indigenization, uniformity and inter changeability of sets.

Audit observed that the performance and reliability of the newly delivered sets was also far below the requirements of IAF. Contracted specifications in the area of frequency range, speech secrecy and anti jamming etc, considered vital for flight safety of combat fleet, have not been met. This has led to aborted missions, potentially unsafe situations in the air and low aircraft availability. The ECCM modes have not been proven to be satisfactory on any aircraft.

HAL failed to rectify these defects and instead stated, in May 2008, that they had reached the limit of their technological capability to develop the sets any further. HAL, therefore, sought a permanent waiver to the deviations from the Joint Staff Qualitative Requirements (JSQRs). HAL also indicated that existing deviations of INCOM sets were due to system-architectural limitations and could not be corrected without total redesign. This would be equivalent to a de novo development cycle. The development project was closed in 2008.

The IAF stated (February 2009) that the below-par performance of the INCOM had been adversely affecting operations on aircraft fleets where the INCOM is installed. As the INCOM sets have not been able to meet the entire replacement requirement for the existing radio sets, in the mean-time, IAF continues to use the obsolescent radio sets which have outlived their life. Air HQ accepted, in February 2010, that operations are adversely affected due to continued use of the existing sets as they are unreliable and can no longer be maintained due to non-availability of spares. (Input courtesy: CAG Report)

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