A deal for Black Shark torpedoes, built by Finmeccanica subsidiary WASS, has been held up for months following a steady stream of complaints that corrupt practices helped the deal through. The latest was reportedly a letter from a Member of Parliament. The war has been over Atlas Elektroniks, the contender that lost out in the deal (here’s a detailed report in the Business Standard newspaper). The torpedoes are intended to arm India’s Scorpene attack submarines under construction at the Mazagon Dock Ltd shipyards in Mumbai.
As things stand, it appears that a decision remains hanging despite committees declaring the deal ‘clean’. Here’s what Defence Minister A.K. Antony said in Indian Parliament today:
“The contract for procurement of Black Shark torpedoes has not yet been finalised. Representations/references have been received from different quarters including from one competing vendor and Members of Parliament. Special Technical Oversight Committee was constituted with approval of DAC (Defence Acquisition Council) to review the evaluation process and complaints received. The STOC has opined that the procurement has been progressed in accordance with the laid down procedures, in keeping with the provisions of the RFP (Request for Proposal) and DPP-06 in transparent and fair manner. The DAC has considered the STOC Report and accepted the same in September, 2012. Government has not taken a final decision on the procurement.”
Best idea to stop corruption, buy only indigenous products. I think they will find a way even then, the idea might be to use second grade junk materials to build arms and polish it as first grade. Some years before, i heard that, if we buy 1000 tanks, then out of that 600 will be in the quality as mentioned, 200 will be 2nd or 3rd grade and the remaining 200 they will not buy itself. I don't know how much true that is. Corruption everywhere in India. Very sad to see it at this stage.
Any Ching, Chong and Khan can hold up our defence procurement – qya bakhvas.
Cujo
Delays and hanging decisions are the keywords.
The article states that a complaint is from "A letter from a member of parliament"..well how many Indians take any member or parliament as face value!!!!…The IAS has made India and Indians a laughing stock by their idiotcity. This whole game of canceling deals just shows that the administration does not know whats happening and cannot do its job and is running around like a headless chicken in any direction
What the hell happened to Varunastra and light weight torpedo????? This is painful….do half-hearted research and then junk it for phoren stuff
I completely agree with Cujo.
Its an height to see such thing happening!